


Choice

by eibbil_one



Category: Twilight
Genre: F/M, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-15
Updated: 2010-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:16:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eibbil_one/pseuds/eibbil_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years have passed since BD and Renesmee is now a young woman. Due to an agreement b/w Edward, Bella and Jacob, Ness has no idea that Jacob imprinted on her. Jacob left the choice to her. Now she's of age...what will she choose?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit different than my first Twilight story. While it will have a little angst, there's more humor in this one. And, unlike Finding the Key, this isn't Bella and Edward centric. The main ship in this is Jake/Renessme. It's canon compliant and takes place 6 years after Breaking Dawn. But also because I'm me...there are Bella and Edward moments throughout the fic. Lovely ones :D
> 
> If Breaking Dawn didn't float your boat, or you can't get past Bella and Edward having a child and/or Jacob imprinting on that child, this is not the story for you. Please hit your "Back" button now, thanks.
> 
> Further, if you don't like Jacob, now would be a good time to find something else to read.
> 
> Lastly, there will most likely be an M rating on this fic in future, but the story has to go there before I'll change the rating. In other words, it'll probably take a while before the smut happens. Hope you can bear with me for it.
> 
> That's it – the last of my pre-story warnings. If you're still here and ready for some fun, thanks for reading along!
> 
> Now onto the story!

Preface

 _It all came down to choices – easy ones, hard ones, impossible ones. And in the end, the choice was left to me. They gave me that much._

 _As I stood staring, watching the rise and fall of her tiny back as she slept, I made the most impossible choice of them all. I chose to let her live, let her grow, with her choices her own._

 _Something I'd been denied since the moment the gene was triggered and my body phased from human to wolf._

 _I folded myself in half to touch my lips to the top of her head. "Sleep well, my Nessie. I'll be back in the morning."_

 _Back. Yes, I'd be back. Nothing would change, not really. I'd still be her big brother or her best friend. Whichever she needed._

 _Until such a time that_ she _chose to change that. Of her own accord and not because of any obligation she felt pressed to accept._

 _Because she'd never know it existed._

Chapter 1

It hadn't been an easy life.

Something about the fact that my parents were vampires made that inevitable.

I often thought, during the tedium of my classes, what it would be like if one day I introduced myself in front of a new class with a _true_ introduction?

"Hi. I'm Renesmee Cullen, though I'm registered here as Vanessa Masen. Have to be, you see, because my brother, the striking boy over there? He's really my father. Married Bella, the beautiful girl attached to his hip, when she was eighteen and he was one hundred and four. See, they're vampires. Well, Mom wasn't when she got pregnant, but she is now…"

It was a fun diversion. Especially when I got to the part where my classmates started running pell mell for the exits.

I didn't remember much about those early days, the first few months of my life, but who did? Granted I had a more advanced mind that my so-called peers, but even with that, the memories of those first few months were hazy and vague. From what I'd been able to piece together about that time, I didn't think it was a bad thing that I couldn't remember much of it. That hadn't been a happy time in my family's history.

But we'd moved past the difficult time and settled into the mundane, every day existence we lived now.

Or, at least, as mundane as a houseful of vampires and one vampire/human hybrid could live.

No one had really wanted to leave the Forks house, but nearly four years of near seclusion there had made it necessary. We'd traveled extensively during those four years, but I knew the chance of a run-in with others they'd known before I was born plagued their minds. And for good reason. None of them looked any different and I…well, I didn't look like any four year old, but I did look too much like my dad.

It had taken six months to put everything in place. Grandpa C was in his new job (pediatrician this time), Esme renovating the beautiful, if needy, estate house (complete with crumbling outbuildings) we'd found; and Mom, Dad and I were enrolled in the local high school. Aunt Rosalie hadn't been ready to run that gambit again, so she and Uncle Em, and Uncle Jasper and Aunt Alice were playing college students this go-round.

Mom, Dad and I had been a bit more difficult. I knew the convoluted stories that had been the cover stories for my aunts, uncles and father in the past, but that wouldn't work this time. Dad and I looked too much alike and Mom and Dad? They'd have a scandal on their hands that would put vampirism to shame if _they_ tried to act like siblings.

In the end, we'd decided that Dad and I would pose as twins, Edward and Vanessa Masen, and Mom would be another adopted orphan, Bella Cullen. Mom hadn't wanted to give up the Cullen name. Dad, naturally, had grinned like an idiot for days about that one.

There was only one downside to our relocation. For me, at least. And for Mom.

Jacob.

Even though we were only a hundred or so miles away and I saw him on the weekends, I still missed him. I was too accustomed to seeing him every day as I had for the first five years of my life. We talked on the phone and texted each other every day (sometimes more), but it wasn't the same as having him close enough to just drop in whenever I wanted to see him.

It wasn't as if I was pining for older male company, or a big strong hug when I'd had a lousy day – my father, uncles, and grandfather were always up for a round of "try and squish Ness to death," but it wasn't the same. Never would be. They were my family and Jake was…well, he was my Jake. There wasn't any other way to describe it than that.

Thankfully, I never needed to. Everyone else seemed to get it just fine.

It hadn't been easy at first though. There'd once been a treaty that had kept my family off of Quileute lands, a treaty set in motion eons ago. Back in the early 1900s, I think. Until Mom and Jake became friends. Of course, that was also around the same time Mom and Dad were falling in love. Still, the treaty hadn't been an insurmountable problem. Then Dad and Jake started fighting.

Over Mom.

Natch.

For most of its existence, the treaty had just been some invisible border out in the trees with a big, virtual "No Cullens Allowed" sign over it. And no one much bothered. It wasn't as if the mountains around Forks, or anywhere else in running distance for super-speedy vampires, didn't provide ample dietary staples. As far as I knew, the Reservation wasn't rife with the vampire version of champagne and caviar. Just the usual – elk, deer, the occasional lost moose – so avoiding that area when they hunted wasn't really a big hardship for my family.

No blood, no foul as Dad sometimes said.

But then, right around the time Mom, Dad and Jake were going through…whatever they'd gone through, the treaty suddenly became a Very Big Deal. Everyone and their brother would whip it out at opportune moments to make a point, or counter someone else's.

It was all still pretty confusing to me because no one liked to talk about that part of my life with me much. From what I've gathered, it wasn't pleasant for anyone, so I didn't push too hard.

The upside was that after I was born, or, rather after the Volturi left, the treaty had been rewritten. The Cullens were still forbidden to bite humans, though I got the impression that was just added as a technicality; the packs knew the Cullens well enough now to know we didn't go around nibbling on random humans for fun. The Cullens were also still forbidden from crossing onto Quileute lands – with the exception of Mom, Dad, and me. The packs had, apparently, accepted that Mom and Jake would always be friends and that Dad and I would just naturally follow her wherever she went.

Besides, it made things easier if we didn't have to be escorted whenever we wanted to visit him, which was, at least in my case, a lot.

Take right now, for instance. I wanted nothing more than to leave school today and try to duck down to LaPush. Just to see him for a bit. I was pretty sure I could make the trip there and back in a night. I might not run as fast as my parents, but it wasn't _that_ far. And if I took Mom's car I could go even faster…

Across the lunch table, I heard my father growl.

Back to reality.

"Easy, Dad," I muttered around the salad I was toying with just as Mom said, "Hush, Edward." I felt the table move when she kicked his leg.

"You're not running all over the state just to drop in on Jacob, young lady," he hissed at me, eyes on the bagel he'd just ripped to shreds.

"I don't see why not," I hissed back.

"It's a school night," he offered lamely.

"Like that ever stopped you," Mom grinned back, leaning over to whisper something in his ear. I couldn't hear what she said, but it effectively ended that conversation. One whispered comment from Mom and my father's world narrowed down to her, just as her world narrowed to him at times.

It had always been like that and I was used to their bickering as well as the meaningful stares that always came after. _Those_ stares were the reason I'd asked for a room at the main house as well as one in our little cottage. Just like in Forks. Mom had protested at first, not wanting to be separated. Then I'd shown her, in my own way, what life was sometimes like in my room at the cottage. She made it three seconds into the image I showed her before she backed away with a sheepish smile…and helped me decorate my second bedroom.

One of the girls in my French class waved from across the room, motioning me over. I looked back at my parents who were now having a private but intense conversation with their eyes. I left them, towing my salad along with me, knowing they'd not miss me. When they stared like that, the floor could burst into flames beneath them and they'd never notice.

"Hey Ness."

"Hi Kat," I smiled, moving a chair out with my foot and taking the seat next to her. "What's up?"

"Not much," she said in a tone that implied the opposite. "Just thought you'd want a break from your brother and his girlfriend. They're doing it again."

"Yeah, I know," I sighed dramatically, keeping my face blank. It wasn't easy.

"I swear. They keep that up and the cafeteria's going to go up in flames just from the side effects," Sydney chimed in from across the table.

They all joked, but I could hear what was behind their words. Pure, unadulterated envy. Even my own voice wasn't immune. Watching soulmates was never a peaceful experience to those still without theirs; it was even worse for those who didn't have a prayer of finding one.

"Annnyway," Kat broke in. "I heard a little rumor between Trig and English, Ness. It looks like you'll be getting a phone call sometime in the next few days," she grinned, "or hours." She let the statement settle around the table for a moment before dropping the bomb. She turned to Sydney and stage-whispered, "it seems someone's caught the new boy's eye."

A shock of giggling descended. Because it was, in fact, a high school cafeteria, no one paid any attention.

"Trey Phillips?" Sydney exclaimed over the hand clutched to her mouth, "he's absolutely _gorgeous_ , Ness! Blond hair, and his eyes…" She pressed a hand to her chest and fluttered her eyes dramatically, "absolutely deadly."

I just rolled my eyes when she fluttered hers. Surrounded as I was by the perfected forms of my uncles and grandfather, and especially Jake, physical looks were pretty far down on my list of priorities when it came to what appealed to me. I also knew, from meeting others of my parents kind, that physical beauty was no guarantee that the beauty lay within as well.

"He told Daniel he wasn't into dating, though," Sydney commented after a moment's silent contemplation and a few furtive glances towards the boy in question.

"That's what Alex said, too," Kat agreed, both of them speaking as if their boyfriend's combined word was something close to gospel. "Guess he changed his mind once he saw you, Ness."

"Oh, please," I sighed, tossing an empty straw wrapper at her. "More likely he caught a look at Bella and figures I'm the best way to get close to her."

Kat scowled. "I dunno. I mean, sure, Bella's gorgeous, but one look at your brother and I'm pretty sure any guy would back off quick."

I cocked my head to the side, hearing something in her words, and with Dad otherwise involved, I knew he wasn't listening for suspicions. "What do you mean?"

"Look at them, Ness," Kat grinned, waving a hand in my parent's direction, "you think any boy at this school thinks he's got a prayer of stealing Bella away?"

"Not to mention," Sydney piped up, "I mean, no offense and all, but your brother's a little intimidating, you know?"

I made a mental note to tell Dad to keep an eye on Sydney, but I didn't think it was that vital. Dad _was_ intimidating, especially when anyone male so much as smiled at Mom. I heard him mutter about a guy named Mike once, but then Mom laughed, Dad growled, and they both ran off together. They didn't come back for several hours and the forest behind the cottage looked as though it had lost at least two trees. I didn't bring the subject up again.

My thoughts must have finally penetrated Dad's absorption with Mom because I heard a very distinct sound from two tables away. Thankfully, the bell's ring covered the hiss and I was able to say a quick goodbye to my friends before heading him off.

"Which one's Trey?" he asked before I could even open my mouth. I sighed. Trust him to pick that out of my head rather than a possibly suspicious friend.

"Dad," I said under my breath, my hand on his chest. "Deep breaths, all right? Ripping his head off in the English hallway would be the opposite of inconspicuous."

Mom said nothing, but she started to chew on her lip. So much for an ally there.

Dad was the first to come back to the here and now, looking around the cafeteria and scowling when he found it empty. "We'll talk about this when we get home, baby girl," he added softly, using my childhood nickname because he knew it would soften the frown on my face. And, of course, it did.

"For now, get to class. And good luck on the Biology test," he added, snaking his arm around Mom's waist and steering her towards their phys ed class. "I've got to go keep your mother from cutting a swathe of destruction through our gym class with her basketball skills."

I laughed then, because while Mom had become as graceful as most vampires were after her transformation, any type of sport was still a nightmare. Especially if a ball, bat, or racket was involved.

She was still punching him in the side as they walked towards their class and I headed off to mine.

The sound of a thousand popsicle sticks hitting the kitchen floor was followed almost immediately by a long stream of the most colorful swear words I'd heard this far away from a Quileute bonfire party.

I glanced over at Uncle Jasper from behind the fridge door, my brow furrowed. It was the second time in twenty minutes that his Architecture project, a scale model of the Forks house, had hit the floor. As a rule, vampires weren't this clumsy.

I shut the fridge door, wondering what could be wrong with my uncle when I heard a phone buzz from somewhere in the house. It wasn't mine, but I jumped anyway.

The few sticks Uncle Jasper had managed to put back in place clattered to the floor.

"Oh for fuck's sake! All right, Ness, want to tell me just what the hell is going on?"

My head popped up over the apple I'd taken out, but hadn't bitten into yet. "What?"

"I've been as jumpy as a cat in a bathtub ever since you got home from school and I'd like to know why," his expression was glaring, but his eyes twinkled behind it. "You failing a class? Ditching school?" He winked. "Going after the humans on the sly?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Uncle Jazz…."

"Well, it's got to be something. Every time a phone rings somewhere, you jump yourself almost to the ceiling. I'm amazed there aren't claw marks up there," he grinned again, his mouth opening as if he'd had a sudden realization. "You know, I've had more than my share of experiences with high school emotions, and there's only one logical conclusion here," he paused and grinned at me, "can I be the one to tell Edward a boy is calling?"

I felt the blood heat my cheeks. I'd inherited my mom's tendency to do this and envied, once again, my mother's _inability_ to do it anymore. To hide my mortification, I tossed the apple in my hand at him. He caught it, naturally, which made me scowl more.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," he grinned.

"Dad already knows, Uncle Jazz," I commented, rolling my eyes. I was trying for nonchalance. Should have known that was about as pointless as outrunning Dad – especially around my uncle.

"He might know the call is coming," he grinned, breaking the apple into four pieces and juggling them easily, "but I doubt he knows you're nervous enough about it to head for human food."

Uncle Jasper was still juggling the apples as he headed out of the kitchen, his architectural project forgotten and a laugh in his voice as he called my father's name.

I sighed and smacked my hands over my face. "Oh, wonderful," I sighed.

 _n - how'd the bio test go?_

 _great. think i managed a b_

 _a b? your dads gonna flip_

 _kidding jake. aced it. hows laP?_

My thumbs paused over the keys. Miserable. Lonely. Wretched. Empty. All of those fit, of course, but I couldn't send them.

 _great. leahs at 3 weeks not phasd now and emilys getting huge_

When Ness didn't reply back at once, I slipped the phone into my pocket and bent back over my current car reconstruction. I wasn't quite lame enough to stand staring at a cell phone like a zombie, waiting for a response.

Close, but not quite.

The car was going faster than I'd ever managed, including the speed-building I'd done with Bella's and my bikes. The by-product of having entirely too much time on my hands. I'd decided to start rebuilding another about three hours after they'd left for Seattle the first time. Actually, Billy'd helped with the decision to start on another car – when I was given a choice of finding something to do or have him ask Paul to hamstring me to stop all the damned pacing.

I grumbled as I tinkered with the engine. At least it was Thursday. One more day and the Cullens would be back in Forks. One more day.

Course, that only made me grumble more. Not long ago, I would have thrown another bonfire party when the bloodsuckers left and considered their return a black day, indeed. Now I was counting the days until they returned every time they headed to Seattle. Pathetic.

I was just about to mess with the carburetor when my phone buzzed again.

 _Sorry. Phonecall & now aa wants to shop luv u_

My first response was a chuckle, of course Shortie wanted to shop. When didn't she? But then my eyes focused on those last two words. I brushed a thumb over the display. "Love you, too, Ness."

"Jacob?"

I turned, jumping at the sudden sound in my normally empty garage. "God, Rach. Could you wear a bell or cough or something? Don't just…turn up. I nearly had a heart attack."

"Right, little brother. Because that'd happen. You must've been pretty absorbed in that text to not hear me coming," she commented, staring at the pocket where my cell phone now rested.

I ignored her comment and leaned over the car's hood to ruffle her hair. "So what drags you away from hearth and home this evening? Paul finally driving you as batshit crazy as he drives the rest of us?"

"Nope. Just worried about my brother, the one Dad says spends nearly every waking minute in this very garage pounding bits of metal into submission as if they're about to up and revolt against him."

"Don't know what you're talking about," I muttered, wiping my grease stained hands on my jeans. "I just don't like sitting around and doing nothing. You'd rather I, what, go sofa spud? Work on my fantasy football team?"

"Jake, that's not what I mean and you know it. I mean, it's rare enough to find you human these days and when you are, you're in here. When are you going to tell them that enough's enough? That you want your chance with Ness?"

The wrench in my hand bent with the force of my grip. "Stay out of it, Rachel," I ground out between my teeth.

"No, I won't stay out of it. You know Paul won't tell me anything about what you think with your pack-mind thing, but damn it all, I can read my husband, and I can read _you_ , and I know it's eating you up."

"What part of stay out of it did you miss? Do I need to use smaller words?"

Rachel, too used to me to be put off in the slightest by my sarcasm, merely crossed her arms and huffed at me. "Fine, Jake. Enjoy the misery. I brought dinner over for you and Dad. Eat some of it, all right?"

She was gone before I looked back up. "Thanks for trying, Rach. You just don't understand."

She couldn't understand, no one could - at least, no one here. Here, they were all happily together. Imprint and imprinted. Sam and Emily, expecting their second child and Sam two years past his last phase. Jared and Kim, Paul and Rachel, revoltingly happy newlyweds. Embry and Maia, Seth and Jade, newly imprinted and in the flush of new love. Hell, even Quil and Clare were disgustingly content in their big brother/little sister mode.

Together. Every day. While Ness was a hundred miles away the majority of the time.

The bent wrench flew across the garage and punched a hole through the wall opposite me.

If it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all.

"It was your choice," I muttered to myself. True as it was, the thought brought no comfort with it at all. I missed her like a drowning man missed oxygen.

Once, a very long time ago, I'd watched as Bella would wrap her arms around her torso whenever her mind conjured up images of Edward. She'd told me it was the only way she had of keeping herself together.

Over the past 18 months, I'd come to understand that action a lot more than I ever had then. It was, without a doubt, the crappiest feeling in the world.

It was stupid, really. Sitting here miserable, living for the two days a week I got to see her, like some pathetic puppy waiting for its master to come home. Pathetic. Degrading.

It didn't help that I could see Blondie's smirk in my mind at the puppy reference.

I started pacing again.

Okay, so. So what if I'd made the decision myself? I was entitled to change my mind, wasn't I? After all, Quil wasn't banging his head onto walls over the fact that he'd imprinted on a child, was he? No. He was happily going about his life – granted that life included more Hannah Montana than should be allowable by law, but still. He was with Claire.

"That's it," I announced to the empty garage. "I'm heading straight up there and…"

Before I could finish the thought, Ness' face swam into my mind. A different face than the open, happy and smiling one I usually saw. The one she wore in my mind was one was doubtful, questioning, with a hint of her father's skepticism.

The face she'd wear if she wasn't sure whether what she felt was real or just what was expected. No matter which way I spun it, Ness had too much of her mother in her – and Bella would always strive for what was expected, what would make others happy.

Did I really want Ness _that_ way?

I'd had just about every major choice in my life taken away from me, forced on me by birthrights and situations outside of my control.

Did I really want that for Ness?

Another tool, screwdriver this time, went sailing through the garage wall. I heard it lodge in one of the nearby trees with a thud, but didn't go to retrieve it. Because the answer to either question hadn't changed since I'd watched her sleep that night six years ago.

I didn't want that. No matter how horrible it was here without her, I would not force her into something she didn't want. I would not try to force her decision.

I might not be the sharpest set of claws in the pack, but I had learned _that_ lesson well.


	2. Chapter 2

RPOV

The phone's vibration stopped me mid-text to Jacob and I nearly dropped the phone in my haste to answer.

"Hello?"

"Vanessa? It's Trey. Trey Phillips, from school?"

"Hi, Trey. Can you give me a second?"

"Of course," he agreed, affably.

I covered the mouthpiece then and glared at my father. It wasn't so much that he was sitting on the opposite end of the couch from me. It was more that he was growling like someone was coming after Mom and me with a burning torch.

"Daddy, do you mind?" I asked just as my grandmother walked into the room.

"For goodness sake, Edward," Grandma said, scolding him with a smack to the back of his head, "even Charlie managed to keep from _growling_ when you were around."

"Out loud, anyway," Uncle Jasper chimed in from the second floor.

No one else in the house said anything. They were too busy laughing. Uncle Emmett in particular sounded as though he'd have peed in his pants by now if such a thing were possible.

With a very Dad-like eye roll, I got up from the couch and sprinted for the back patio. It was one of the first things Grandma had restored in the main house and one of my favorite places in the whole house. I wasn't silly enough to think it afforded me privacy – I'd probably have had to go to Canada for that – but I could at least _pretend_ no one was listening while I was out here.

"Sorry about that, Trey," I apologized when I'd stretched out on the most comfortable lounge chair and stared overhead to the stars peeking out as the clouds moved across the sky.

"No problem," he said. "Let me guess, parents right? Mine are a pain in the neck, too."

I managed, just barely, to keep from laughing out loud and managed to compose myself. "They're not that much of a pain in the neck, really. They've sort of sworn off that stuff." I couldn't help but add the last for the benefit of those eavesdropping and sure enough, there were chuckles from all over the house.

"Maybe you'll let me in on your secret to keeping them in line? Mine can be so overbearing."

It was nice, I thought with the part of my mind not busy talking to Trey, just talking to someone, to a boy. Refreshing, almost, to feel like any other girl in my high school class, to be excited about having the cute new boy call me. I ignored the growl from back in the house. Dad would just have to deal.

Much as I sometimes hated being different, there were, after all, some perks to being a vampire hybrid. Having a more advanced mind than the humans around me was just one of them; using that mind to carry on a conversation with Trey while marveling over the purely human experience at the same time was another.

I knew, deep down, that nothing could ever come of it. Even if Kat was right and the purpose behind Trey's call was to ask me out. Hell, even if we _did_ go out. What could ever happen? Eventually he'd notice the big family portrait over the mantle (the one of me and my whole family, taken when I was about six months old) and probably wonder why my family looked the same then as now, even though I was no longer an infant.

Still, though, it was fun to imagine that something could happen. Or even explore that world for a little while. After all, Mom hadn't let Dad's being a vampire stop her, had she?

I wondered if he'd kiss me and what _that_ would feel like.

"Edward!" I heard my mother's voice a nanosecond before I heard the growling start up again and the sound of shattering crystal.

God, but it was unpleasant having a father who read minds.

"So what do you think, Ness?" Trey's voice in my ear called all of my attention back to the present. He'd switched from my more formal name to my nickname about halfway through our conversation and now, it seemed, I had a decision to make.

"I think dinner sounds great, Trey. I'd love to go with you."

"Don't you have to ask your parents?"

 _Oh crap_. "Yeah, I probably should, huh? I mean, they're pretty easy going about this sort of th—" I broke off when both my mother and Aunt Alice sprung from the second floor balcony and landed on either side of me. Both were grinning and Mom was nodding her head so hard it looked in danger of flying off.

I couldn't help it; I laughed.

"Something funny?" Trey asked, sounding a little put out.

"It's nothing," I cajoled, wondering what he'd say if I told him I was laughing at two women who looked like more like overeager puppies than vampires. "But my mom's giving me the thumbs up, so I guess we're on for Saturday. What time?"

Once we agreed on a time, I got off the phone as soon as I could without appearing rude because Aunt Alice was bouncing so badly, I was starting to fear for Grandma's patio. I'd barely ended the call before they were both pulling at me, Mom gushing over first dates and Aunt Alice wanting to shop.

"Hold on, hold on!" I had to raise my voice to be heard above their babble, but I managed it. Wrenching my arms away from them both, I deleted the message I'd been about to send Jake and sent a different one.

 _Sorry. Phonecall & now aa wants to shop luv u_

By the time I'd sent the text back to Jake, I was surrounded by Mom, my aunts and Grandma. The only one missing was Grandma Sue and I was pretty sure they'd be calling her once we reached Alice's room. Nothing like first date talk via speakerphone.

Because, really, if you're going to blow something wholly out of proportion, might as well go all the way.

There was only one odd moment. Just as we were passing the second floor landing, I heard Uncle Emmett talking in the game room where he was, presumably, handing Dad's ass to him playing Halo.

"Wonder how he's going to take this?"

I didn't hear Dad's response, just a slight hiss, so I turned to Mom instead. "How who's going to take what?" I asked as we passed the room.

There was a full second's silence followed by a loud thump, a muttered curse, the sound of breaking glass, Grandma yelling "Boys!" There was also the rise of various soprano voices as the female members of my family went into full gush about my date with Trey – clearly trying to cover whatever was being said in the game room.

I debated asking just what the hell was going on, but as I knew I wouldn't get an answer I kept the question to myself.

"Smart girl." That was Dad, speaking a floor below us now and I shook my head.

"Are you guys ever going to tell me anything?"

There was one beat of silence before the chattering started up again.

I had my answer. The same answer I always got.

No.

Mom was still putting the clothes away after the impromptu fashion show when I climbed into bed. I watched her graceful darting motions and tried to picture her as a human – apart from the one very blurry memory I had of my own. Grandpa had showed me pictures of her as a baby, and as she'd grown; he'd told me stories about her as a little girl and then about the time when they'd lived together at the Forks house.

But it wasn't the same. My mom's human years were as foreign to me as the question I'd struggled with in Kindergarten. The one asking about my favorite food. I never did find out what Miss Douglas thought about my answer.

And after all the female gushing about boys and dates and things, I had questions. Questions I should be able to ask my mother without any uneasiness. But I was uneasy, because there was a good chance she wouldn't be able to answer. Over the last six years, many of her human memories had gone completely.

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

I picked at a spot on my bedspread. "Do you remember your first date?"

The smile blinked off of her face and she went utterly statue (a fun quirk my family had – they all went rigid when stressed, shocked or surprised). It was a bitch when they it happened while they were driving.

"I don't think I really had one," she said when her body went fluid again, her brow furrowed. I knew she was trying to see past the veil that covered what human memories she had left. I also knew there weren't many of them still rattling around in her perfected vampire mind.

"It's all right, Mom. Don't worry about it."

"No, Ness, it's not all right." She huffed a bit then dropped onto my bed with a solid thud that stressed the box spring. "I should. I should have worked harder to keep the human memories with me, for you. I should be able to talk to my daughter about these things."

"Mom, you had a bit on your mind in those first few hours. You held onto the important things, like Dad. Jake's told me a little about…about after you woke up." Yeah, a very, very little.

I sighed when she went rigid again. One of these days I'd get the full, complete story of my birth, my babyhood, my parents' courtship, all of it. I was getting damned tired of living in the mental equivalent of Swiss cheese.

All the holes in my past were going to drive me crazy sooner or later.

"I could tell you about the first time your father took me to dinner if that would help?" Mom piped up and I was glad to see that she'd unfrozen even though I knew that meant the holes wouldn't be plugged up tonight.

I decided to buck it up and take what I could. I'd find out the rest eventually. I'd try Jake again. Maybe if I asked just the right way... I stopped my thoughts there and focused most of my mind on Mom and Trey, burying the thoughts about my first few months under them.

Dad might be able to read minds, but Aunt Alice had perfected getting around that, bless her unbeating heart.

"Start at the beginning?" Mom asked, holding up the blanket for me.

I wrinkled my nose. "After the frat boys. I don't like that part much. I like the part where Dad charges in and saves the day."

Based on the look on Mom's face, she did too.

I slipped under the covers. Mom lay on top of my bed, the better to not chill me to the point of shivering while still holding me close.

"Now we all know that your father drives like a complete maniac," Mom began, then waited. Sure enough, there was a thump against the floor as whatever book Dad was reading right now hit the ceiling.

"Hysterical, Bella," he commented and we both chuckled.

"So there we were, racing a Volvo like it was sitting in the pole position at Daytona rather than the streets of Port Angeles," Mom started again.

"Driving. We were driving, Bella" Dad countered.

We both looked up at the same time. Of course we did. Mom had been telling me this story, precisely the same way, since I was just a few months old. And it didn't matter that I was an adult, for my kind anyway. It didn't matter that my parents looked like my peers.

The only thing that mattered was my parents on either side of me, telling me the impossible story of how the walls came down between the vampire and the human at last. I'd never wanted repetition in my bedtime stories. Hearing about Toad on the Road a hundred times did not interest me. These, however, did. No matter how many times they were told.

I could listen to them talk about how they fell in love forever. Which was a good thing, actually, considering we _had_ forever.

As they bantered back and forth, I allowed my eyes to close. It was easy enough to picture them as they were, sitting across from on another at La Bella Italia. Very easy considering they looked identical now as they had that night.

I fell asleep to their teasing, my dreams filled with mushroom ravioli, sunlit meadows, and a strong, cool hand in mine.

JPOV

My head cocked to the side as soon as I heard the car's tires hit the gravel of the driveway and I let out a loud howl of welcome. I headed straight for the front of the house, paws digging deep into the soft soil when I turned the last corner.

She was out of the car before Edward stopped. I felt her presence while she was still twenty feet away, just the sight of her was enough to fill my heart and ease my soul. Then the distance closed and she was right in front of me. "Jake!"

Her arms wrapped around my neck when I reached her. I dropped onto my haunches and rested my head on her shoulder, looking over at Bella and Edward as they got out of the SUV. Bella smiled, Edward growled.

Nothing new there, apparently.

Edward cocked his head to the side, reading my thoughts, no doubt, and gave me The Look. I knew The Look well, because he was constantly shooting it at me and had been since Ness' physical age reached about sixteen. The Look said, quite plainly, "roll over for a belly scratch and I'll return you to your pack in pieces."

Edward was nothing if not consistent.

I rolled my eyes and Bella, who knew The Look as well as I did, sighed and grabbed hold of Edward, towing him into the house. Then Ness pulled away and my focus was re-centered at once.

I found her melted chocolate eyes with mine and jerked my head towards the forest beyond the big white house in silent question.

 _Want to get out of here?_

Thankfully, she was of the same mindset. Her eyes twinkled and her face broke out into a wide, happy smile. The same smile that had speared through me the first time I'd seen her, wrapped in Blondie's arms.

The moment my life had changed.

"Give me a second to go change into something else," she said with a small laugh, bringing me back from my mental stroll through the past. We both looked at her clothes, and shoes, at the same time. Then we both laughed. Alice had, apparently, struck again.

I nodded my big head and stood to shake out my fur while she flitted into the house and up the stairs. I heard her mutter about the guilt her aunt had pressed on her, and at the same time I heard Shortie muttering about lack of fashion sense running in families.

I was still laughing when Ness reappeared and danced to my side. "Come on, big brother. Let's go find a view."

Another man, I'm assuming, would have felt a kick straight to the ego at the brother reference (and I'd probably feel it later), but right at that moment, I was too freaking happy to give much of a shit. I was too happy to be with her, to be the source of the smile on her face.

I was pathetic. Just as pathetic as I used to find Quil, Jared, Paul, even Sam.

It would bother me again, I knew, on Sunday. When the Cullens returned to Seattle and I returned to sulking. But Sunday would come soon enough. For now, I was going to live in the moment.

Intent on enjoying every second of time I had with her, I rose to my full height and howled once, my feet prancing against the grass. She grinned as she always did when I looked impatient and led the way. She wasn't as fast as the rest of her family, so I kept my pace with hers. Not a hardship for me because I wasn't in any real hurry.

It didn't take us long to reach her favorite place, a small outcropping of rock with a view that stretched all the way to Canada. The weather was on our side, for a change, and we were free of rain. Even the cloud cover was minimal; there was just enough sun to give Ness that faint glow, so unlike the rest of her family and their creepy glitters. So beautifu…

 _Knock it off, Jake._

 _Thanks, Quil._ I thought back at my brother. For the most part, my pack tended to stay human whenever they knew I'd be around the vamps. For one, they knew the Cullens would sense visitors just as well as they would while running patrols, thanks to Alice's little gift. But primarily, none of them wanted to listen to the self-flagellation I went through when I was around Ness.

I didn't complain. Because as much as they hated to hear me? I hated feeling their pity almost as much. Quil was the only one I didn't mind having in my head when Ness was home. At least he had the closest shot at understanding any of this.

 _I do, Jake. And it's not pity. It's…_

Words seemed to fail Quil and I snorted. Of course they failed him. Pity was pity no matter what fancy word you tried to pin on it. Every other wolf in the history of forever met a girl, imprinted, and life went on as normal. Granted, sometimes it took a while for ages to mesh up, but still. No one intentionally signed on for this torture.

No matter how many times I told myself it had been my decision, it never made things any easier. Especially when she was this close.

I was an idiot. Always had been, always would be. Time hadn't change that in the slightest.

Ness stopped once we'd reached the end of our path and drew in a deep breath. Her eyes were locked on the view before us, her skin flushed from the run, but her breathing steady and even as though she'd merely walked across a room.

"God, I miss this in Seattle. Being able to run, you know? Just run, find places like this." She turned back to face me and I was glad I hadn't phased yet. Promise or no promise, there would have been no disguising the look on my face when she smiled at me like that. Her perfect smile, the joy radiating out of her, the curve of…

 _Knock it OFF, Jake._

Not Quil this time, just me…pathetically talking to myself.

"Ah, Jake?"

I snapped back to the here and now when Ness walked over and laid a warm hand on my shoulder. "You planning on phasing or are you just going to stand there panting all evening?" I realized, too late, that I'd just been standing there staring at her like an idiot for way too long.

 _Happens to the best of us, man. Good luck._ Seth's annoyingly cheerful voice did nothing to improve my mood. Happy little punk still annoyed me sometimes.

I didn't answer Seth's thought; I just nodded my big head at Ness and stepped back into the shelter of the trees to phase back.

 _You've got the pack, Seth. Howl if you need me_.

Not waiting for his answer, I phased into human form and tugged on the old sweats that had been tied around my leg. Once they were firmly in place, and thankfully showing no evidence of my earlier, and very non-big brotherly, feelings, I joined her on the cliff face.

"Hiya, squirt." I greeted her with an easy smile I pulled from somewhere, nudging her side with my elbow when I stood beside her. Normally, she'd grin in response at the nickname because I'd been calling her that since she was six months old. It used to make her giggle. Tonight, however, she scowled at me. A scowl I recognized. Apparently, that look had been passed down mother to daughter just like the eyes.

"Whoa. All right. What'd I say?"

There was a long pause during which I tried to figure out what I'd fucked up this time. Thankfully, Ness took pity on me and laughed softly, laying a hand on my arm.

"Don't strain yourself, Jake. You didn't do anything wrong," she said on a sigh and sat, stretching her legs out in front of her.

I stayed where I was for a few seconds. Debating. I knew I should sit beside her; it was the prudent thing to do. But I never had before and I wasn't about to start now. Prudent didn't go well with my idiocy, either.

It wasn't what she needed., either. I could feel _that_ radiating off of her in waves.

I stretched my long legs on either side of her and wrapped my arms loosely around her, pulling her back against my chest. "Start talking, Ness."

"It's just...I don't know, Jake. There's this boy at school."

It took bit of strength I had to lock my body down and not react in any way. No growling, no teeth grinding, no hands clenching, nothing but smooth even breathing and a pat to her hand.

"Uh huh," I said blankly. I was going for casual and slightly disinterested. I think I managed it, and that was a good thing.

Because jealous and territorial would not have gone over well.

"He called the other night, asked me out. Dad, Mom and I are running back to Seattle tomorrow night for it. Dad's growling and hissing a lot but that's what he's supposed to do. I can understand it, to a degree, I mean I know nothing can come of it. Even if it did, he'd probably notice that I wasn't getting any older after a while." She laughed a little, it sounded hollow. "But, I don't know…"

Ness turned then and faced me, a wide, expectant smile on her face. "Jake. You remember your first date, right?"

My own eyes narrowed. "Yeah, course I do. It was a complete disaster on so many levels, it almost qualifies as epic failure." Unhappily, my mind filled with the sounds of Newton puking into a popcorn bucket in the back of my old Rabbit. In the years since, I hadn't found a way to exorcise that sound from my mind. "Don't see why that'd make you happier than a vamp at a bloodbank, though."

She swatted me for the leech joke; she was stronger than a human, but not as strong as a vamp so while the swat stung, it didn't really hurt. "I tried asking Mom about hers, but...," she said with a shrug.

"Let me guess, she couldn't remember it?"

"Sort of. I mean, she thinks it was the first time she and Dad had dinner together in Port Angeles, so they told me that story again. But it's not the same, because I'm not sure how much of it she really remembers and how much..."

"...how much she's just saying because she's told the story so many times," I finished for her.

"Yeah. So I thought. You're human," she paused and then giggled. "Well, more or less anyway. Stands to reason you'd remember your first date and as I'm about to have mine, I thought you could tell me about it and then I'd have a better idea. I mean, it's not like your first date was with a vampire, so I could get an idea of what to expect."

"Not exactly," I said softly.

Ness turned to face me. "What d'you mean, not exactly? In which parallel universe would you ever date a..."

She stopped then, the frown line forming between her eyebrows a mirror of her mother's. "It was Mom. Your first date was with Mom."

I laughed. "Yeah, it was. And a complete nightmare. Me, your mom, and another guy who kept harboring these delusions that he had a chance with her. His were even worse than mine. Then Newton got hit by the stomach flu and started marathon puking. We got him home, I started to feel like crap, too, so I took your mom home. She got the flu a few hours later and I went home to Billy and phased for the first time. Fun times, eh?"

Ness was quiet in my arms. Not even a shudder of a laugh. "Ness?"

"In other words, there's no such thing as a typical first date in this family, except maybe Aunt Rose, even if he did turn out to be a complete slime who raped her and left her for dead. Or Grandma Esme's first husband, or the humans."

"The pack...," I started but Ness was already shaking her head.

"Most of the pack never had a first date, Jake. They imprinted. Their first dates were with their soulmates. I mean, aren't you the only one..."

A little tremor went down my spine. The same thing I always felt when rogue vamps were nearing the peninsula. The shiver of Impending Doom.

Ness pushed out of my arms and turned to face me. It never failed to floor me, the way the genetics worked out. She looked a lot like her father most of the time. But when she was angry, she was all Bella. Usually this made me smile, but I managed to hold it back. I was pretty sure that if I smiled right now, Ness would do her best to gut herself a werewolf.

"Jake, have you ever been in love?"

I could almost hear the clanging of warning signals going off in my head. Like I was on a submarine and someone had just sounded the collision alarm. Danger! Danger! Retreat!

I didn't retreat though. My idiocy about anything connected to Bella (even her daughter) had been well established, so I went with form and stayed where I was. Floundering...without a clue.

"Yeah, I have been." Twice. Still am. Always will be.

"Tell me about it?" She asked as she turned back to look out over the valley below us.

"Not much to tell, Ness. Clearly, it didn't work out the way I'd planned or I'd be married with a herd of ankle biters like Sam by now, right?"

I nudged her when she didn't even chuckle. Then blew out a breath because I was hoping to avoid this part. "Come on, you know this one well enough."

"Bits and pieces, Jake. You know they don't talk about all that stuff around me. Just the fluffy bunny happy parts."

"Fluffy bunny? In what universe does a vampire falling in love with a human ever qualify for 'fluffy bunny' status?" She swatted at me again and I snorted. "Come on, Ness, can you blame them? It wasn't a picnic in the woods for any of us." Ness just turned her face sideways, one perfect brown eye fixing on my face and I cursed, fluently and silently. I also wondered if she knew that just one twitch of that brown eye could get her whatever it was in my power to give. I really hoped she didn't.

For now, she needed answers. And that was all my imprinted mind needed to know before my mouth started spilling. I could only hope that I was able to keep it together enough to not spill out the vitally important bits.

Like the fact that I loved her. Would always love her. Would do anything for her. Would...

"Jake?"

"Right, sorry." I took a deep breath and found her eyes. "Dunno what I can tell you. I fell hard for Bella, she fell hard for your dad. The three of us went through seven levels of hell until we were all completely miserable, but there wasn't ever anyone else for Bella but your dad. Took me longer than it should have for that to sink in, but it did. Eventually."

"And then, what? Your feelings for Mom just went away? You just...stopped loving her?"

The bells started clanging again, louder this time. Again, I stayed, picking my way through the minefield in front of me.

The rebel without a clue, that was me in spades.

"Something like that," I answered at last. I knew from the tension in her body she wasn't going to accept my lame-ass answer, so I searched my mind for some version of the truth the might accept.

I remembered that time so clearly. How could I not? It was the lead up to the most significant moment of my life. I remembered my growing pull towards what I thought was Bella, but was really the baby girl she carried, the confusion of it, the gut-wrenching, heartbreaking pain and then…the wonder of seeing my Ness for the first time. The endless moment when our eyes first met.

"Jake? You still with me?"

As she had then, Ness pulled me out of myself and back to the present. "Sorry, squirt. No, it didn't go away. It just…changed. I realized that it wasn't love like it should be, not love like your mom and dad, or even your aunts and uncles and grandparents have. It wasn't what I thought it was, so I...got over it."

She was quiet for a long time and I played over what I'd said in my mind, looking for any sign of a screw up on my part. For once, I didn't find one.

Apparently, miracles do happen.

I was half-tempted to reach for her hand and put it on my cheek, desperate to know what she was thinking. Hell, I'd have even welcomed the bloodsucker listening in if it netted me a clue.

"Are you," I paused, not sure if I wanted the answer to this one, but knowing I had to ask, "do you love this boy? The one who asked you out?"

Her head shook and she snorted out a laugh. "Of course I'm not in love with him. I'm not even sure I like him much. Not everyone falls in love on first sight, Jake. I mean he's a decent guy, and still has his head attached so there must not be anything too terrible in his mind. I just…wonder, that's all. When you're surrounded by matched sets of soulmates, you start to get curious, you know?"

I couldn't help it, I laughed. "You forgetting that nearly everyone in my pack has imprinted? I know exactly what you mean."

I tensed only slightly at my blunder. I tried not to bring up imprinting around Ness. It just led to uncomfortable questions. Or impossible ones given that I couldn't outright lie to her, because she'd never need that.

Thankfully, she was satisfied enough with my answer to simply fall silent, lost in her own thoughts just as I was.

We resumed our spot on the cliff face, our legs stretched out in front of us, Ness' back to my chest.

She pushed backward, further into my arms and I complied with the mute request automatically, closing my arms around her. I was content to just hold her, to have her warm body against mine even in the most platonic of moments. Because if this was all she ever needed from me, it would be enough.

Until she reached up a long, slender hand and touched my cheek.

Images filled my mind, overlaying what I saw of the valley below. Some were more vague, just flickering images, a little redheaded girl leaping into my arms or holding onto my back while a line of death approached us. The newer ones were clearer. Nights like this when we'd sat in the forest or on the mountain top, talking. Working together in my garage over various cars. Me fastening a bracelet to her wrist, what she thought was a friendship token, at her last birthday.

"I wish…," she started to say, but a buzzing near her pocket stopped her mid-sentence.

"Crap. That'll be Dad. Grandpa and Sue must be on their way." She eased from the ground and turned to hold out a hand to me, the look on her face incomprehensible in the near pitch-blackness of the night around us.

As I darted back into the trees to phase, I muttered black hatred at the bloodsucker's perfect sense of timing rearing its damned head again. I wondered if it were possible to separate Edward from his phone. He always called at precisely the wrong moment.

We made our way back to the big white house, but still the question plagued me. What had she wished?


	3. Chapter 3

The sounds of a socket wrench ratcheting back and forth filled the small, comfortable garage behind Jake's house. I stared at the two new holes that marred the flimsy walls and wondered who'd pissed Jake off this time. Paul was my first guess, but that was a sucker bet.

Paul could piss people off just by breathing.

My eyes flittered around the oversized shed/undersized garage fondly. This place was as much my home as the house and cottage outside Forks. I'd started coming here when I was just a few months old, when the treaty had been rewritten to give certain Cullens the ability to wander onto Quileute lands without it causing all Hell to break loose. It'd been about a month before Christmas and Dad had decided to surprise Mom with a Christmas present she wouldn't bitch about. It was, as far as I knew, the first (and last) time he managed it.

Both Jake and Dad had been against me helping out with the project of resurrecting Mom's old Chevy from automobile coma. Not surprising as they were the two most over-protective men on the planet. I could see their point, though; they still weren't sure whether or not I'd inherited Mom's utter lack of grace along with her brown eyes.

In the end, it'd turned out that their worries had been for naught. Unlike my mom, I could hold a hammer for longer than five seconds without it somehow becoming embedded in my forehead.

Uncle Em had laughed himself silly when I'd put it in exactly those words. So had Jake.

Mom had snarled at me.

Of course, in those early days my "helping out" was mostly handing tools to Jake or holding drip pans. As with everything else, though, I'd learned quickly. Thankfully, Jake talked to himself while he worked and that alone taught me half of it. The rest I learned by asking. I must've driven him half-crazy that first year with my incessant questions, but he didn't seem to mind at all.

By my first birthday I was rebuilding engines.

There was only one real downside to my love of cars, engines and spending as much time in this garage as I was able. It didn't coincide well with my aunt's fashion sense – or, rather, the fashion sense she thought I should have.

Uncle Jasper still carried the picture of me in the fussy dress Aunt Alice had bought me for my first birthday. He said it was his happiest memory – the only time he'd ever seen Alice completely lose her composure.

The picture he cherished showed me looking around four years old, bent over the hood of a Ford pickup with a wrench in one hand and grease covering nearly every inch of the white lace dress.

"Ness?"

The warm hand on my arm startled me, but only for a second. I'd know that touch anywhere.

He looked at me questioningly when I turned to face him and I placed my hand on his cheek. His smile grew to match mine as I showed him what I'd just been remembering – our first work together in the garage and Aunt Alice's tirade.

"I thought Shortie was going to blow a head gasket for sure that night. Leah swears she can still hear her screeching." He chuckled. "I think my favorite memory is when you found the hammer, though."

Because my hand was still on his cheek, it was easy enough to share the memory with him. The image I sent him was one of me looking as though I was about two years old, and hefting a sledgehammer over my shoulder. The hammer was bigger than I was.

"That's the one." He laughed a bit, but the humor slid off his face the longer he looked into mine. "You're quiet today, Ness. What's going on?"

I took my hand from his cheek before any errant thoughts could slip through my hand and into his mind. "What do you mean? I haven't been quiet."

One black eyebrow disappeared into his hair. "You've said more to me with your hands today than you have since you were a year old and we finally convinced you that talking was an acceptable means of communication."

"Oh, shit."

Our heads turned in tandem towards the garage's entrance. I'd smelled wolf a second before and I'd hoped, futilely it seemed, that it was Seth.

But it wasn't. Damnit.

"Well, well, look who's here. Little Miss Half 'n Half," she said as she rounded the corner and faced us.

Leah Clearwater might not be my favorite person, but this time I was grateful for her presence. Hell, even Paul would have been welcome. I was thinking about Jake too much these days; or, rather, I was thinking the _wrong_ things about Jake these days. I needed to stop before I did something really stupid – like letting him find out. Leah was the perfect distraction.

"Hi, Leah," I said, offering her as bright a smile as I could manage.

Beside me, Jake was glaring. "I've told you not to call her that."

"Jake, it's—" I started, but Leah cut me off.

"And I've told you, unless I've got paws and a tail, you don't have a say in what I do or don't do, Captain Alphapants."

There was a pause of dead silence before both of them dissolved into their deep laughs that always sounded more like barking. I wanted to laugh with them, but I stayed quiet. Whatever Leah was here to talk to Jake about, I was positive it didn't include me.

While they talked, I went back to the radiator I was working on, their voices filling the silence. Leah laughed once, a soft, easy sound. One I only really heard her use around Jake.

There was something about these two, the Alpha and his second. There had been for as long as I could remember.

I asked Leah once, years ago, if it was because she'd imprinted on Jake. She'd laughed so hard it'd taken her a few minutes to remember how to breathe properly. There was an almost mean edge to her laughter, though, so I'd never brought it up with her again. I don't know what I'd expected to hear from her, though. The truth? Right. Leah hated me. Granted, she hated Mom more, but I wasn't much higher on the list. I'd be more likely to get help from the elk that roamed the woods near our house than from her.

I tried asking Seth about it, but he'd backed away from me like I'd asked about his underwear preference. Same with Embry, and with Quil. I couldn't get any of the pack to talk to me about imprinting beyond the basics.

Hell, Mom was the only one who'd even say the word around me. But any hope I'd held out for answers was a vain one. Mom hadn't given me anything of use. At least, not as far as Jake was concerned. She told me that a wolf's imprinting was a very personal thing and it could be considered rude to ask about it. That was Mom shorthand for '"stop asking."

Of course, I suspected she didn't want me to keep asking the question for a different reason. Like her being afraid that I'd find out something she didn't want me to know.

Because I'd started to suspect that Jake _had_ imprinted...on the one woman he could never have.

It made sense, really. I mean was there any guy, save my uncles and grandfather, who hadn't gone completely goofy over Mom on first sight? What else could it have been?

Sigh.

I was so wrapped in my own thoughts that I didn't notice that the garage had gone quiet. When I looked up, it was to find Jake and Leah silent and staring at me.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," Leah said. "I'm sure Jake didn't need that screwdriver anymore."

Confused, I looked from her to Jake, then to what Jake was staring at – the screwdriver I'd bent into a U shape with my bare hands.

I flushed and fumbled with the ruined tool. "Jake, I'm sorry. I can get Mom or Dad to..."

Jake walked over and took it from my hands and set it on the tool bench. When he turned back to me, his eyes were comforting. His hand came up and the backs of his fingers brushed my red cheeks. "S'all right, Ness. It's not like I don't have other screwdrivers, you know?"

I looked into his dark brown, almost black eyes and felt it again. The pull. It didn't happen every time I looked at him, but when it did the world narrowed down nothing more than the two of us. It had first happened two or three months ago and, unfortunately and impossibly, the instinct grew stronger every time I felt it. An instinct to step into his arms and never leave.

"Ness?" Jake's voice sounded odd, deeper than I was used to.

I was about to ask if he had something stuck in his throat, but then Leah spoke up, effectively breaking the mood that had descended between us.

"All right, break it up you two. Though it might surprise you, I actually do have better things to do with my time than watch th—"

I watched Jake's eyes go from that faraway black look and snap straight into the present. Almost as if he was forcing himself away from something vitally important to handle something utterly inane.

"Tell Seth it's fine," Jake half-barked, interrupting her before she could finish her sentence. "He's right that Colin and Brady are ready to shoulder a bit more on their own. Tell him to have fun tonight and tell Jade I said happy birthday."

Leah looked between me and Jake for a moment. One eye roll later, she turned and left the garage.

"Well," I said, looking up at Jake with a smile, "that was fun."

Jake frowned. "Leah's all right, Ness. She's just, she hasn't had the easiest time of it since she phased."

"I know, I know. The only girl wolf, having to run around with the thoughts of a pack of boys in her head all the time, the man she loved imprinting on someone else, someone she loved like a—"

I broke off, because that last one was a little too close to home.

Jake must have caught something in my tone, or on my face, because suddenly his big hands were on my cheeks. "Ness, what is it?"

It took everything in me to keep my thoughts to myself, to not raise my hands and place them on his, to show him what I wanted, what I wished more than anything. As we stood there, close enough to feel each other's heartbeats I thought maybe...

A rhythmic buzzing on the workbench made us both jump, lost as we were in the moment. Two buzzes, pause, one buzz. A text message from Dad.

"That's Dad," I said.

"Course it is. Damn leech timing," he muttered as he walked back to the car.

I didn't agree with the mutter, though. I was grateful for it. Sometimes, you needed a little divine intervention to keep you from something really stupid. Even if the divine came in the form of text messages from a vampire.

I read the message twice then responded back. I flipped my phone shut and shoved it into my pocket.

"Anything up?"

"No," I said on a sigh, "Dad's just reminding me to hunt this afternoon before we run back to Seattle."

"Right. Your, ah, date."

I looked at him, my brow creasing, but he spoke again before I could ask him about his tone. "Why's he want you hunting, though? You planning on having the date for dinner?"

I smacked his arm. "Very funny. You know how they are. Aunt Alice can't see me, so I they want to be as sure as possible that I won't slip. Not that there's any chance of it. Teenage boys smell worse than voles. Grandpa says it's the hormones. Besides, I haven't had human since I was a newborn."

"Yeah," he said, a little distantly, "I remember."

I couldn't put a name to the expression on his face, but it looked as though was deep in thought – or deep in the past. I wondered what memory my comment had conjured up to take him so far away from me. Then it hit me. While I was a newborn and drinking human blood from a cup, Mom was a floor away dying. Or so he'd thought at the time.

That was probably the worst moment of his life. Smooth move, Ness, bringing up that happy thought.

"So, are you going to come hunting with me, or not?" I asked, a little louder than I normally would have in an effort to break through his sudden trip into the past.

Jake came back, and brought my favorite smile with him. "I could eat."

He walked towards a dark corner of the garage so he could strip and phase. The image of that brought a hard blush to my face, which was utterly stupid. Why the hell would the idea of Jake getting ready to phase bother me? It wasn't like I hadn't seen him do it a thousand times or more.

Before I could ponder it further, however, there was a huge wolf in front of me, sniffing at my cheek. He cocked his big head to the side, questioning me, nosing my cheek again to indicate the redness there.

"It's nothing, Jake, seriously." I put the thoughts aside and turned for the door to the shed. "Bet I catch the biggest one."

The Jake-wolf barked out his usual laugh and sped past me into the woods surrounding his house, heading in the shortest line off the reservation so we could hunt.

"Mom? Is Daddy ever going to move again?"

She laughed as she finished the last of my braids and kissed the top of my head. "Eventually. Be patient with him, love, he's in new territory. That doesn't come easy to vampires. Especially ones as ancient as your father."

We both giggled when he snarled at us. "Hysterical, Bella."

"I thought so," she trilled back, sticking her tongue out at him.

He might have spoken, but he hadn't moved beyond that. He just stood, staring at the front door as though Buffy herself was just on the other side.

"Don't suppose I could convince you to shield Trey when he gets here?"

"No chance," she laughed again, but there was determination behind her gold eyes. She might be moving around, but she was just as much on alert as Dad was.

"Would you two relax? Please? You're making me edgy and wild-eyed panic is not exactly the look I'm going for tonight."

Just then, Dad started to snarl. Not his usual irritated sound, either – this growl was the stuff of a human's nightmares.

"Edward?"

The Dad-statue's head turned just enough to look into Mom's eyes. "He's here. He's in the car." Dad took in a big gulp of unnecessary air, as if bracing himself. "He's thinking about kissing her goodnight."

Now it was my turn to growl. Especially when Mom went to stand next to Dad, turned towards the front door and bent low into her hunting crouch.

"That's it, you two," I said in the loudest voice I dared use with a human close by. "If you don't knock this off, I'm leaving now and going against my promise to let you do the meet-the-parents thing. How many times have you told me you wanted me to have as normal a life as I could? Well, I have news for you both. That includes boys, and going out on dates, and possibly even kissing. So unless you were lying about that, you need to back off. Besides," I paused and reached out to both of them. I put one hand on each of their cheeks, and showed them the ten-point buck I took down that afternoon while hunting with Jake.

"I don't think a teenage boy would pose much of a challenge after that, do you?"

Mom straightened from her crouch and even giggled a little, darting to my side to pull me into a hug. Dad, taking his cues from Mom, as usual, relaxed from his sculpture impression.

"Sorry, Ness. We just…"

"Worry, I know." Was there ever going to be a time when they wouldn—

"No," Dad said, answering my thought.

"Dad! Knock it off," I grumbled loudly just as the doorbell rang. Before I could blink, Dad was at the door.

"Human speed!" I hissed, not knowing how much Trey could hear through the door.

He stopped with his hand still on the doorknob. He counted to twenty, very obviously for my benefit, then pulled it open.

Much as I wanted to go straight to Trey and usher him off the porch before my parents had a chance for much of the first date interrogation, my mother wrapped her vise grip around my upper arm. Damned vampire strength.

"Good evening, Mr. Mas—oh, hi Edward."

Trey looked a little stunned. Clearly he'd been expecting my "father," not his schoolmate. I pressed my lips together to hide my smile. I wondered how long he'd rehearsed the meet-her-father speech before coming to the door and now it was going to waste. "I was expecting your father," he said, a bit lamely.

"No problem," Dad said, easily enough, but with an edge beneath his words. This time, I hissed. Mom came to our rescue.

"Hello, Trey. It's good to see you again."

"Ah, yeah. Hi, Bella. Didn't expect you to be here."

One day, I'd get used to the way boys, men, anything male, went to jelly when they looked at Mom close up.

Leery of the muscle twitching in Dad's jaw, I decided to speed things along. This whole setup had a disaster potential that was off the scale. Standing this close to a jealous, protective vampire was about as safe as juggling nitroglycerine. Maybe I should have let Uncle Jasper come along after all, despite it meaning Aunt Alice fussing for hours over what I wore. Oh well, too late now.

"Hi, Trey," I said loudly, stepping between Mom, Dad and my date. Maybe if I kept the eye contact to a minimum I could keep the situation under control. Then I could get us out of here as soon as humanly, or inhumanly, possible.

"Hi, Ness. Wow, you look great," he replied, a genuine smile crossing his face.

All I could do was nod; most of my mind was trying to gauge the mood of the vampires behind me.

"Knew I should have asked to borrow Charlie's gun," Dad said, so low Trey didn't have a hope of hearing it.

"Thanks, you do too," I answered Trey, a little louder than usual, trying to hold this fiasco together as well as I could. Another few minutes and one or both of them would shift into a hunting crouch. That'd make things interesting.

"Aren't your parents here?"

He was looking around me, or rather he was trying to look around me. I kept blocking his line of sight. If the soft snarls I heard behind me were anything to go on, I was pretty sure Dad's teeth were bared. Not something he needed to see.

"My, ah, parents had to head out before me, some social thing, so Edward got handed the duty of waiting to see us off." I smiled warmly. "You're saved the meet the parents part of the evening. Isn't that great?" A nervous laugh bubbled up – some of my parents tension was crossing over to me and I was starting to babble.

If was ever crazy enough to go the first date route again with a human, I was definitely bringing Uncle Jasper along for the pick-up portion of the evening.

An uneasy silence descended. I was standing between my date and my vampire parents, the latter none too comfortable with the situation. It was beyond time to leave.

"Well, bye, Edward, bye, Bella. Have a good night." I didn't give them a chance to respond, or give Trey a chance to echo the goodbyes. I just stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind us.

Thankfully, they both stayed on the other side of it.

I took Trey's outstretched hand and let him lead me down the front walk towards his car. He very politely opened the door for me then shut it gently behind me once I was seated. As I waited for him to walk around and get in, I turned to look back up at the house.

Mom and Dad were side by side in the front window, Dad's arm around Mom's waist, both holding the other tightly.

For a moment I saw them as Bella and Edward, not Mom and Dad. They had fought through so much: first to be together, then to have me, then to keep me safe. Now they stood together, my seventeen year old father and eighteen year old mother, and watched me drive away with someone, a human, they didn't know.

I couldn't begrudge them and their over protectiveness. I couldn't get angry over a few snarls or glares, or even a wish for a shotgun. I was everything they thought they could never have – the tangible, living proof of a love that defied all odds.

I met their eyes and mouthed "I love you" to them both while Trey drove off down the street.

EPOV

"I don't understand it."

"Understand what?"

"How did Charlie keep from killing me, or trying to, whenever I came to pick you up?"

Bella laughed softly. "I think the fact he can't read minds had something to do with it."

I shook my head. "It wouldn't have mattered, I never had those sorts of vile, perverse…."

I stopped suddenly because Bella's lips were in my way, kissing the words from my mouth. "I'm sure his thoughts about Ness weren't that graphic, Edward."

"Oh, they were fairly graphic, trust me. About our little girl," I paused, then tipped her chin up, "and about my wife. Around the time I nearly broke through the door to rip his throat out, his thoughts were centering on sandwiches."

"Sandwiches?"

"Yes, of the sort where he's the filling and you and Ness act as bread."

Bella's golden eyes widened as a snarl ripped up her throat. "That little creep. And he looked so nice on the outside."

"Reminds me of Newton," I grumbled then felt some of the tension ease from my shoulders at the look of pure puzzlement on Bella's face. She still didn't believe the prurient fantasies Newton's mind practically shouted every time he saw her.

Fortunately, I hadn't been subjected to his fantasies for years.

Unfortunately, there were dozens of others all over the school we attended who shared Newton's perversions.

Really unfortunately, Bella still didn't believe a word of it.

Six years of men practically swallowing their tongues around her and she still thought of herself as fairly uninteresting and utterly plain.

I would have beat my head against the wall if it would have done anything other than earned me a lecture from Esme. She hated repairing drywall.

I felt Bella's warm hands on my waist and turned into her embrace, my hands running up and down her spine. "Obviously the worst of the thoughts were just the same wild, impossible fantasies you've heard before, right? I mean, if he was serious about them, you'd have ripped him to shreds on the doorstep."

"Yes," I allowed, "his only serious thoughts centered around a hope for a goodnight kiss and perhaps…" I stopped there. I couldn't even articulate the thought the little cretin had superimposed on my little girl's body. I sighed. "Nothing Ness can't handle on her own if the advances aren't welcome."

I felt Bella relax in my arms for two whole seconds before the small vibration in her pocket startled us both. I eased my hold on her just enough for her to remove her cell phone.

Neither of us had a doubt who it was.

"Hi, Jake."

I moved to the other side of the room to give them the allusion of a private conversation. Not that it mattered. It wasn't as if we didn't all know I could have heard his side from any room in this house, and probably across the yard if I focused. But I thought it the polite thing to do.

"Hiya, Bells." He paused and Bella grinned. I kept my face stone.

"Come on, Jake. Don't try to be coy. Just ask."

I could hear the sigh just as easily as I heard his voice. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to."

"What, you mean that he'd have done something stupid and Edward would have ripped him to pieces right on the front doorstep, saving us all from the hell of a first date?"

"Something like that," Jake muttered.

"Well, it did come close. I think the last time Edward practiced that much restraint, it was..." Bella paused and looked towards me for the answer.

"Your eighteenth birthday," I supplied without inflection. Granted the restraint had been for very different reasons, but the effort involved had been identical.

Bella looked back at me quizzically. I knew this was one of the parts of our past history she had almost completely lost from her human memories. It wasn't one I was sad to see go; and as I didn't believe she'd miss it either, I hadn't helped her remember it.

I shook my head at Bella and mouthed, "Trust me."

As ever, she did.

"Okay, so the bloodsucker managed to not kill him. That's...good."

This time we both laughed. Only about this would Jake ever consider my giving in to my "natural" food source a good thing.

"What was he like?"

Bella was in front of me a second later with her hand to my lips. "He was fine, Jake. Even though he thought us only her brother and brother's girlfriend, he was polite and respectful. He complimented her appearance, held the door for her; it was actually sort of sweet."

"Dammit."

Bella pressed her hand over my mouth even harder. Hearing me laugh right now would not help Jake in the slightest.

"Relax, Jake. He's just taking her to dinner. "

Bella's frown matched mine when we both heard a rustling sound on the other end of the phone.

"Jake? Everything all right?"

"Yeah. Just, ah, dropped the phone. Trying to install a drive shaft." There was the distinct sound of metal on metal. Jake setting down his wrench, I supposed.

We both relaxed, just a little. Bella had been afraid that Jake would try and come to Seattle and make trouble. Or at the very least, make an ass of himself; the latter being entirely possible. If he was in his garage at La Push, we could cross that concern off the list.

"Have a good night, okay, Jake? It's not like she's running off. Truth is, I'm not even sure she likes him much. I think she's just after the experience of it."

"Sure, sure," he agreed and I could hear in his voice the complete lack of conviction. Based on Bella's expression, she could too.

"Listen, I've got to go, Bells." His words came out in a rush. "Thanks for the info and everything. Tell Ness I'll call her tomorrow, 'kay?"

Bella's eyes darted from the phone to me then back again. "He hung up on me," she said, a hint of effrontery in her voice.

"There you go again," I said easily, wrapping my arms around her waist, "expecting the dog to show manners."

I thought I'd get a smile, or even an exasperated smack to the shoulder. I got neither. Instead, Bella went to stone in my arms.

My mouth was open to ask her what was wrong, but just then her mind opened to me as she lifted her shield. I saw her memories of her nineteenth birthday and the puzzlement in her face as she tried to remember the one before.

 _What happened during my eighteenth, Edward?_

I sighed and tightened my arms around her. Then answered with the one word I knew would bring back enough of her memory to stop the questions.

"Jasper."

It took almost a full minute, and I listened as her mind worked through the faltering pathways to that night, the paper cut, the flying dishes, my "act of utter and complete stupidity." That was how Alice had explained to to Bella, apparently. I frowned, just a small crease between my brows, but Bella caught it.

 _She was right,_ she thought back at me correctly guessing what the frown was about, _that was the stupidest thing you've ever done._

"Thanks so much," I grinned back, amazed that the darkest, bleakest time of my life could finally be discussed as if it were nothing more interesting than bad weather on a much-anticipated vacation.

I expected her mind to go silent as it usually did when she'd finished asking the questions she didn't know how to articulate. It didn't. Instead, Bella's mind went back to her nineteenth birthday – the day she'd awakened to her new life, the day she'd met our daughter.

A hundred memories came at me of Ness' life, the best moments of it – not the terror and pain of those weeks waiting for the Volturi – her first words, her first steps, the first time we'd attempted to send her to into a social environment with other children her age. Hunting trips, vacations, quiet nights with nothing more than a roaring fire and a pile of board games.

 _Too fast, Edward. Our baby's grown up too fast_ , Bella thought at me and I could feel the sad tone in her thoughts.

"They all do, as I understand it," I answered her back quietly. "And from what I've heard in other minds, parents think the same whether they've had six years or sixty. Stop being so morose, Bella. It's like you told Jake. She's just going to dinner, not running off to the ends of the earth to live in a tree with Nahuel.

Bella laughed...and still the connection remained open. As I loved this closeness with my wife, I wasn't about to question it.

 _Admit it, the mere thought of Nahuel used to scare you green._

I laughed with her because it did. Until a year ago when Ness told him finally, but gently, that her life was here with her family...and that she saw him as a kindred spirit, but nothing more. It must've sounded like the Forks house had a gas leak from the simultaneous exhales of relief that statement had generated.

"A little," I allowed with a smile, the one that lifted only half of my mouth and had always caused her human heartbeat to stutter.

 _Crooked smile._

I grinned back at her, making no effort to straighten it.

And still her mind remained open.

"Bella?"

Then her thoughts returned to her last birthday, to that night. When Ness had finally fallen asleep and we were alone in our cottage. My body reacted predictably, and rapidly. Unsurprising given the memories she chose to focus on.

"Bella," I said again, but in a much different tone of voice.

"It'll be at least a few hours until they're home from dinner and we have to be appropriately interfering about switching on the porch light when he tries to kiss her goodnight."

"A few hours?" I repeated her words as a question, my hand coming up to rub at my chin. "I suppose I could try and make it quick."

I held out my hand to Bella. She placed hers in mine.

And for a long while, we managed to forget all about our daughter's first date.


	4. Chapter 4

"So, your brother's really protective, isn't he?"

Trey's casual question brought me out of the slight side trip my mind had taken into our family history. I gave my head a little shake. I needed my wits about me for this one. If I wanted them to back off and leave me be when date time came around, I had to earn it by not breaking The Rule.

And the easiest way to break that one is to answer without thinking.

Once I was sure I had my mind completely in the present, I turned in my seat to face him and smiled. "Well, we are twins. I'm just as protective about him."

Trey laughed. "Oh yeah? And did you start snarling when he first brought Bella home?"

"Edward was snarling?"

"Well, not literally, but he looked at me like he wanted to rip my throat out for daring to date his sister."

I relaxed. "Yeah, he's always been like that. Honestly, he's born a few minutes earlier and he thinks he's my father." I held my hand over my mouth to cover the giggles over a joke I couldn't explain.

"My cousins are like that," Trey said, carrying on the easy conversation. "They're twins as well and Dylan's always after Deirdre like he owns her. Pisses her off royally," he continued cheerfully.

I let him carry the conversation all the way to the restaurant. I Mmmed and Uh-huhed at all the right places, but was frankly a little bored by it after a few minutes. Tense as I'd been about answering questions about myself and my family, there didn't seem to be a need for it.

Trey's favorite topic of conversation was Trey.

I was listening to the second retelling of his track and field glory from his former school when we pulled up to the restaurant. My muttered 'thank God' was too low for his ears.

"Awesome, isn't it?" Trey asked as he walked around to my side of the car and held out his hand to help me up.

"Your second place finish in the state championships? Yes, very. I wish I could have been there to see it." I didn't tell him that I'd run the same distance in half the time without breaking a sweat. But I very much wished that I could have. Smug superiority only looked good on Aunt Alice and this guy really needed to be taken down a few pegs.

"The restaurant looks nice," I said easily, smiling up at the steakhouse he'd chosen. "Trey?" I asked when he didn't answer.

"What? Oh yeah, it's great," he said absently.

I studied him more fully then, looking into his face. His breathing wasn't labored and his heartbeat was only a little higher than it had been, but nothing major. He was just standing very still and looking around the parking lot.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing," he said and his voice was returning to its normal arrogance.

"Doesn't look like nothing," I replied and, shutting down my thought images as best I could, put a hand on his arm. "You look a little freaked out."

He looked into my face then and his full, mega-watt smile returned. "It's nothing, really. Learning my lesson about watching horror flicks before bed."

I laughed with him and kept my own voice as joking as I could. "What, afraid the zombies are going to get you?"

It relieved me when he laughed back. "Nothing quite so bad as that. For a second there, I had the strangest feeling that I was being watched."

I had to clench my hand into a fist and shoved it into my pocket. It was the only way I could keep myself from pulling out my phone and calling every family member to see which one had gone against their promise and come to spy on me.

My parents' continual lessons about giving nothing away kept my voice nothing but light and teasing. "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

As I'd intended, Trey laughed with me as he held the door to the restaurant for me. I took my time, taking one slow look behind us, before stepping inside. I didn't see anyone, but that meant nothing. Vampires were nothing if not crafty about staying hidden.

And one of them was going to have a limb ripped off before the night was over.

Trey had made reservations at the busy restaurant and for that I was glad. We were shown to our seats and handed menus without any of the awkward standing around time. As I was busy shoving my plans of revenge on the peeping vampire to the back of my mind, I had little room for small talk.

But once that was done, I had another, not so pleasant, task to focus on.

What was I going to have for dinner?

I stared at the food lining each side of the menu and sighed. Of course they wouldn't have my favorite. Not many restaurants lent themselves to mountain lion or grizzly. At least not fresh to the point I preferred.

Still struggling with that, the waiter came by and filled our water glasses while asking us what else we'd like to drink. I had to work to keep the wry grin off my face.

I told him I'd stay with water while Trey ordered a Coke. Then I went back to my menu, holding it in front of my face to hide the nose wrinkling. I was going to have to eat. Which meant I'd have to get rid of it later. Lovely.

I pushed that thought even further away than the revenge plans. If I let myself think about the elimination business, I'd never be able to choke down dinner. I didn't mind liquids so much, but passing food was beyond description.

"Anything look good?"

I found a smile and shot it over the menu to Trey. "Oh yes, so many things. I don't know how I'll ever decide. What are you having?"

It was rumored around school that Trey came from really rich parents. But since the same gossips also had about a 50/50 accuracy rating, I'd wait to see how expensive his meal was before choosing my own.

"The roast beef," he said with a grin, "I sure hope you're not one of those vegetarians or anything, because I can't live without meat of some kind."

This time I had to bite the insides of my cheeks, hard, to keep the giggles down.

"No, I'm not a vegetarian." _Not in that sense anyway_ , I added silently. "I was kind of hoping the same thing about you. Because I'm really craving a rare steak and didn't want to gross you out." _Really rare_ , I thought, _like still running through the forest._

"Nah, that won't bother me. Swear to God, my dad eats meat so rare it's still moo-ing. Drives mom crazy. I hope you didn't eat a big lunch today, because this place doesn't skimp on the food."

Unbidden, images of this afternoon's hunt sprang into my mind and I felt a smile curl the corners of my mouth. I loved watching Jake when we were hunting. Huge as his wolf-form was, he could move with all the grace of the lions Dad favored. Then, once he was fed, he'd get all playful. He'd wait until I was focused and feeding and sneak up behind me, forcing a growl up from my throat and...

"Vanessa?"

I wasn't sure what brought me back to the present, Trey's use of my fake full name or the sharp sound of dishes crashing in the kitchen, but I quickly refocused. "Sorry about that, Trey. Just remembering something from lunch earlier."

"Must've been some lunch," he said. Something in his tone set my radar pinging and I looked up just in time to see a slight pout melting off his face. Apparently, he didn't want me thinking about anyone or anything but him. I sighed and thanked my lucky stars yet again that the men in my life had long since stopped having attacks of the ego.

Well, the wolves hadn't, but posturing was part of pack life. In hindsight, I thought my time with the pack might have prepared me for teenage boys more than anything else had.

I looked up at Trey with a wide smile, one he returned. Just like a smile always got the wolves tails thumping, it also got a teenage boy's heart thumping.

Oh well, whatever worked.

We talked school and homework through dinner. It was easy and comfortable. Trey was a lovely conversational partner as long as I remembered the rules.

One rule actually. Trey was the center of the discussion. Anything else was nonessential information.

It was boring, yeah, but I'd been taught the Civil War from a first hand perspective. After that? Everything was boring. I'd managed to keep from yawning, but it wasn't easy. I kept a portion of my mind listening to him, making sure I nodded in the right places and didn't start drooling, but the rest of my brain was back home. Hell, even shopping with Aunt Alice would have been preferable to this.

Only one thing had the power to pull me back from my woolgathering and it didn't come until Trey had paid the bill and we'd left the restaurant.

Trey asked me a question.

"So, you're adopted, right?"

We were walking along a sort of promenade, someone's idea of a sick joke, apparently. I mean, who put an open-air market in Seattle? Then again, the residents here never seemed to notice the rain, so why would it bother them here?

I managed to keep my steps even and my breathing controlled. His question wasn't altogether unexpected, it had just been a while since I'd had to answer it. And my brain was only half vampire – my recall was well above average, but well below the photographic memory shared by the rest of them. I searched back through memories of conversations with Kat and Sydney when I'd started at school, remembering what I'd told them – almost verbatim, thank God.

"Y-Yes, we are." Trey's hand had brushed mine a few times as we walked, but I'd managed to keep him from taking mine so far. At this moment, I was supremely thankful of the fact. The last thing I needed was to have physical contact with him when I was asked about my parents. Or my supposed parents or my brothers/uncles, aunts/sisters or...

...it could give a girl a headache. And frequently did.

"I'm sorry, Ness, I shouldn't have pried."

I looked at him, confusion filling me. Then I realized it. He must've taken my frown of concentration as grief. Whatever. I'd use it.

"No, it's not that, Trey." I stopped to give him a wide smile. "I don't mind you asking. I just don't remember them very well. It was a long time ago that we lost them."

"And now you live with the Cullens," he said, very casually.

I nodded, unsurprised. He wasn't asking because he was curious about my dearly departed parents. He was asking to gain some insight into the Reclusive Cullen Clan.

Sigh.

I wasn't under any delusions that Trey had asked me out for this alone. His flirtatious smiles and hand-brushes all pointed as proof that he was interested in me as a person, not as a means to get information about my family. I guessed he just couldn't resist now that the opportunity had presented itself.

There weren't many who could, so I wouldn't count it against him.

"Yep, sure do. We were lucky Carlisle found us," I said, repeating the family history we'd written before starting at this school. "Edward and I had been in some rough foster homes, but we managed to stay together. When it looked like we were going to be separated, we ran away and lived on the street for a few months. Then I got sick, pneumonia. We'd met Bella by then, she was a foster care fugitive as well, and she convinced Edward to take me to a doctor. Carlisle was working the ER that night and," I paused, added a shrug, and smiled, "the rest is history. He petitioned to adopt us and when it was proven that we were all orphans, not runaways, the petition was granted."

"Bella, too?" Trey asked.

I nodded. "She'd lost her parents years before. She'd been taken in by a second cousin, but hated it there, so she left." My smile grew wider. "When Carlisle asked if we wanted to come live with him, Edward made it very clear that he wouldn't go anywhere without Bella."

"I noticed that. They seem very, I mean really close."

"They are. Soulmates in every sense of the word."

"I don't believe in soulmates," Trey scoffed.

I laughed. "You would if you visited my house."

He brightened as if that might be a possibility, a chance to meet our elusive older siblings, and I nearly smacked my own forehead. Instead I ignored the look because there was no way I could bring this human home to meet the rest of them.

I let myself think about it as we walked down towards the waterfront, introducing my boyfriend to my aunts, to my uncles, my grandparents. Mom and Dad had been difficult enough tonight for five minutes while Trey picked me up, but the rest of them? No chance.

His hand brushed mine again as we walked and this time I didn't maneuver my hand away from his and let our fingers tangle together.

"Whoa," he said and I felt a jerk of his fingers.

"What?" I asked absently.

There was a longer than usual silence and I turned to look at Trey. He was shaking his head like Jake did when he'd been in the river too long.

"Is everything all right?" I asked when he continued to just stand there next to me, our fingers touching. My question brought him back and he smiled at me.

"It's nothing, Ness. The movie I watched must've bugged me more than I thought it did."

"Why do you think that?" I was fishing, but I needed to know if there he was just freaked by a movie or by his date and without Dad here to peek, direct questioning was my best course.

He laughed, and that set me at ease. "I was just thinking about what you'd said about you and your brother and got a flash from the movie. At least I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Could have been another one, all vampire flicks run together after a while, you know?"

He'd watched a vampire movie the night before taking me out? Fabulous.

"Yeah, they do, don't they? Which one did you watch?"

"Underworld."

It took every bit of strength, human and inhuman, to keep my giggles contained. The one popular vampire movie that focused on the feud between vampires and werewolves and he'd spent the night before out date watching it? It seriously didn't get any better than that.

"And then," he said, dragging my attention away from my struggle with the giggles, "I saw these eyes down that alley back there. They were too high up to be a cat or a dog and...Ness?"

He had to call my name because I was already walking back towards the alley in question, my eyes narrowed. I scanned the darkened corners with my heightened vision but didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything, either.

"Jake?" I whispered so low Trey didn't have a hope of hearing.

There was no answer. The alley was silent and clearly deserted.

I relaxed and turned back to a perplexed looking Trey. "Sorry," I said, shooting him a wide, warm smile.

The smile did nothing to smooth the frown between his eyes. "What were you looking for?"

I kicked the smile up a notch, batting my eyelashes. "Lucian," I grinned, naming the main werewolf in the movie.

That did it. The joke, combined with my clearly teasing face, wiped the confusion from his face and started him laughing.

Discussion of the movie carried us all the way home. He had apparently found it an engaging movie that almost made him believe that such things were real and could actually be happening.

"Until I remembered that was only Hollywood," he said with a slightly superior, slightly annoying, air. "And there's no such thing."

"Of course," I agreed, tongue in cheek. "Nothing like that exists in real life."

Well, it did. But so far as I'd seen, it didn't happen with that much leather and vinyl. Although Aunt Alice _had_ gone through such a stage for after we'd seen the movie for the first time. Uncle Jasper had enjoyed that stage so much, they'd had to move out for awhile.

I was a little taken aback when the car pulled up to a stop in front of the house. Hadn't the drive out to the restaurant taken more time than that?

Trey was out of his side of the car and around to mine so fast, I could have sworn he'd borrowed a little vampire speed. Of course he hadn't. He was just a teenage boy anticipating a good-night kiss.

 _Please let Mom and Dad be out hunting. Please let them not be on the other side of the front door._

I looked in every window, checking for an outline, a curtain flutter, anything. But the house looked empty and quiet. Maybe they were out hunting after all. Could I be that lucky?

"I had a good time tonight," Trey announced when we'd reached the front steps. I fought back the eye roll. "We should do it again sometime. Soon." By the smile on his face, I could tell he felt he was offering me the chance of a lifetime.

I, on the other hand, just wanted to get into my warm sweats and settle in my big bed with a book, maybe call Jake.

"That would be great," I smiled back at him rather than spilling the truth that he was second to warm fire and a good book, and not even in the same sphere as my shape shifting best friend.

I wasn't sure if it was my heightened senses or just predictability, but I knew the second he'd made the decision to go ahead with the kiss goodnight.

I took a few seconds while his brain switched from intention to action. I took those few seconds to gauge my own mood – was I ready for this? Did I want it?

Yes and not really.

There was no doubt in my mind that I could handle a simple kiss goodnight, and even less doubt that I could handle Trey if he tried to make it more than that. The wanting part was a little less clear. How many romances had I read? Too many to count. In every one of them, when the heroine was standing where I was now, her pulse would be hammering, her breathing erratic, her stomach flip-flopping like mad.

The only thing I felt was a desire to be anywhere but here.

Still, though, it didn't seem right to end the ritual without the customary good-night kiss. I was the one who'd wanted to do this, might as well do it all.

I watched, more intrigued than enthralled, as Trey moved closer. I held my breath as is lips touched mine.

Over the first six years of my life, I'd caught every member of my family in one sort of romantic clutch or another. On one memorable occasion, I'd caught my grandparents in the kitchen. Grandpa Charlie hadn't been able to meet my eyes for weeks after that.

I'd seen it, but I'd never been kissed in a way other than familial or friendship, so I had no practical measure, but after the first few seconds? I was fairly sure Trey was doing it wrong.

If it was this sloppy and cold, I was positive my family members wouldn't have spent so much time doing it. As it was, I was having a hard time not pushing him away with the hand now resting against his chest.

My mind drifted in a very dangerous direction as he continued to rub his lips against mine. Trey was kissing me, but my imagination was picturing someone else. My mind saw someone familiar and beloved, warm and strong...someone who turned into a wolf and was, in a very real sense, the center of my world. Someone who, I was sure, wouldn't leave me cold and lacking while he kissed me.

Oh God. If he kissed me...If Jake kissed me...

Two things happened the moment I had that thought.

Trey backed away from me with a look close to terrified in his eyes and the porch light went on over our heads.

"Trey?"

He stared at me for a second, but then the smile was back on his face. His hand came up and cupped my cheek. "It's fine, Ness. I'm just swearing off horror flicks for awhile. They're messing with my head." He looked up at the porch light with a smile. "I suppose that's my cue to let you get inside."

He looked hopeful that I'd contradict him, but I was too ready for the evening to be over for that. What I wasn't ready for was spending the rest of the night trying to forget that while Trey had been kissing me, I'd been wishing it was someone else.

Someone I could never have that way.

I wasn't surprised to feel Mom's cold hand on my shoulder when I closed the door behind me.

"Have a good time?"

I smiled back at her, my back against the front door. "Good enough. Trey seems a nice enough boy."

Mom was eyeing me closely. "Didn't knock your socks off though," she said, not even phrasing it as a question.

"Nope. Socks firmly in place. I don't even think the little buggers twitched."

We both laughed and Mom led me in towards the family room, but I changed our course towards the kitchen. "I want tea. I'm going to have to get rid of it all later anyway, might as well go all out." I shuddered. "God I wish I could just choke it up like you do. Remember when..." I was thinking about a bet between my uncles and my father. That was when I realized he wasn't there.

Mom alone? Without Dad? That never happened.

I looked around, feeling my eyebrows contract. "Mom? Where's Dad?"

"He. Decided to go hunt."

I stopped cold and looked at my mother straight on. She might have lost the ability to blush, but she was still a terrible liar.

"Mom?"

"What? I thought we were having tea?" She was already walking through the doorway into the kitchen.

"Mom. Where's Dad?"

"It's nothing you need to worry about."

I stayed right where I was, staring at the doorway. "I'd rather make that decision for myself, thank you."

Mom turned back to face me.

"When did he decide to 'go hunt'?" I asked, using the air quotes for emphasis. "And why did he go without you?"

"Not long ago," she said, her voice an attempt at casual. "I guess he was still thirsty."

"Not long ago?" I repeated. Then I figured it out. "Let me guess, it was right around the time Trey was dropping me off?"

"Around then, yes," she said. I expected a smile, something sheepish and apologetic. It was almost as if she was trying harder to keep her face from giving anything away.

That didn't make sense, unless there was more to this than Dad going all Alpha male about my date kissing me good night and...and...

"Oh no." My eyes flew up to my mother's face. I saw it there immediately. I was right. "He didn't. Tell me he didn't, Mom."

"Jake's very protective of you, Ness!"

She called the last because I was already running towards the back patio. I flung open the door and stalked out.

"Jacob Black! You have five seconds to show yourself."

It only took him three.

JPOV

I paced the very edge of the Cullen's property in Seattle my eyes straining for the sight of headlights rounding their corner, my ears listening for the sound of his car.

They'd left the restaurant ten minutes ago.

Seth had clearly heard Ness say they were going home.

So why weren't they home yet?

Why had I let Seth leave?

Fuck.

Both hands buried in my hair and I pulled them through the long strands, not even noticing the knots when they pulled free. Why had I let Seth go home? Okay, he wanted to see Clare before she went to bed, all right he was tired of following the world's most self-centered human, all right he was...

"If you weren't so busy berating yourself for being an overprotective jerk, you'd have heard the car already."

I looked up with a start, my hands shaking by my sides at the unexpected visitor. Fucking stealthy bloodsuckers.

"What the hell are you doing up there?" I asked of the tree-bound leech.

He just smiled, the moon flashing off his overly bright fangs.

"You know very well we don't have fangs," Edward sighed.

"Yeah, I know. It's called sarcasm. You could check a dictionary if you're not sure what that means."

I laughed when he just shot me a withering look. "So, what're you doing up a tree?"

"Bella kicked me out."

I snorted. "She finally came to her senses? Well, better late than never."

Edward just rolled his eyes. "Hysterical, Jacob. Alice called and I got the boot." I'm not sure what look was on my face, but Edward continued without my having to ask anything. "No, she still can't see Ness. But she saw Esme cussing me out, and using words none of us thought Esme even knew, for wrecking the drywall in the living room. As soon as Bella told me to come out here and find you, the vision disappeared."

"Happy to be of service," I ground out, my voice a whisper.

The little creep's car had slowed to a stop. While Edward was speaking, I'd moved to such a position that the front of their house was visible. This was probably not such a good idea as I could now watch as he walked Ness to the front door. I could grind my teeth when he put his hand at the small of her back.

"What's going on?"

"You can see them as well as I can, dog. It'll be over soon, so relax."

"I can see them, yeah, but you can hear them. Tell me what's going on." Much as I hated it, I couldn't keep the note of desperation out of my voice.

Our eyes met in the dim light of the woods and we were both transported back – to a time when he was driven this side of mad because he couldn't know what Bella was thinking when she was away from him.

It said a lot about the last six years that he reached out to help me through that, in spite of the fact I'd been the reason for his lapses into insanity.

"She's bored, Jake. She wants the date over. Keeps thinking about how she'd rather be in front of the fire with a good book."

"And the creep?"

Edward's face went to stone. "I'm staying as far away from his mind as I can."

"That bad?"

"I haven't killed a human in almost a century. I came very close to resetting the counter earlier this evening."

His words, coupled with the look on his stone face, made me very glad he was the only mind reader around here. Because I very much doubted I'd ever have been able to restrain myself. Not if I had to listen to the smarmy little boy having fantasies about my Ness.

Then I remembered Edward had had to listen to mine. God. How did he keep from killing me?

"It wasn't easy," Edward answered my thoughts, one corner of his mouth lifting.

 _I still hate it when you do that._

"I know. Adds to the fun."

I was about to fire off some sort of insult; I hadn't decided which one, when we both went on alert.

The little creep was moving in for the kiss.

My hands started shaking just as Edward's body went completely rigid. We both started growling. I was slightly pissed that his sounded more impressive, but I knew that was only because I was human. When I was a wolf, my growl beat his hands down.

I was never sure if Trey felt his impending death by dismemberment, or if Bella heard Edward and I and decided to intervene. It didn't matter. The disaster was averted and the punk took his hands off my Ness.

We didn't relax until the kid was in his car and on his way.

"Congratulations, Jake. You survived her first date."

I turned to look at him, scowling. "You don't have to sound so damned smug about it, bloodsucker. It's not like you ever had to go through watching Bella go on a date."

"Oh no, not at all. I just had to drive her into a nest of young, volatile werewolves, with absolutely no way of knowing whether she was hurt or not. One volatile werewolf in particular whose life's purpose at that time was to steal her away from me. Certainly you've got it much worse, having to watch her with one human boy she cares nothing for and could probably squash like a bug. My apologies, Jacob. You've got it much worse."

My mouth was open to retort, but Edward's attention snapped towards the house then back to me a half-second later.

"What?"

He didn't answer. Instead, I heard my favorite sound in the world...but not in the way I'd planned.

"Jacob Black! You have five seconds to show yourself."

"Been nice knowing you," Edward called after me as I ran.

I was in front of her in three.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Standard Disclaimer – if they were mine, I'd have a new kitchen and new carpets in my house.

"Jacob Black, you have five seconds to show yourself."

It only took him three.

I heard him before I saw him, running flat out along the long stretch of lawn in the back yard. I was surprised to see him human; for some reason I'd been expecting him in wolf form. Trey's movie influence still? Or had I expected the wolf Jake because I was starting to suspect it had been his eyes Trey had seen in the alley?

Whatever. Didn't matter. Wolf or no, I had a piece of my mind to dish out.

"Ness, I..."

Jake didn't get out any more than that. I held a single finger between us, right in front of his face. "Now would be a very good time for you to pretend to be mute, Jacob Black."

A shade of my ire must have translated well to my face because Jacob's mouth shut with an almost audible snap.

"Much better. Now. I'm assuming you felt the need, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, to come check up on me. That, in itself, is enough to piss me off. But what's pushed me straight into livid is a suspicion – the suspicion that you followed me on my date with Trey. Tell me I have no reason to be livid, Jacob. Tell me that you did not follow me "

I punctuated the last with a few pokes to his bare chest, my eyes never leaving his.

"Of course I didn—"

Unfortunately for him, I saw the evasion before he attempted it. And I knew the truth. Jake hadn't followed me – but I hadn't been alone, either.

"Oh, you stupid, overprotective jerk! You didn't. Tell me you didn't send a member of the pack to spy on me?"

"I didn't send him," Jake said to his feet.

I waited, my foot tapping, until he raised his eyes. "Oh really?"

No," he said. Then, after a pause, "Seth volunteered."

"Volunteered?" I very nearly screeched it. "Who the hell would possibly volunteer for something that boring? Wasn't he supposed to be with Jade or something tonight? And you expect me to believe he just up and left her, left his imprint, to skulk about in alleyways, watching a vampire hybrid's date with a human boy. Don't insult my intelligence expecting me to swallow that pile of bullshit, Jake."

Jake didn't say anything; he just stood there, mouth closed and face contrite. "I was worried. Seth knew that, and wanted to help. You know how eager that kid still is. He-"

"Seth's willingness isn't the issue here, Jake." I threw my hands up and ran them both through my hair, not even wincing at the knots my fingers found and pulled through. "Your over-protectiveness is. What on earth did you have to be worried about? Trey? Christ, between you and my father you'd think I'm some helpless little invalid being let loose on the world for the first time. I am somewhat capable of looking after myself, you know."

"I never said you weren't capable of taking care of yourself," Jake countered.

"Not in so many words, no, but your actions are practically screaming it."

"I couldn't just let..."

His mouth snapped shut again. He seemed to realize immediately, if a second too late, that he'd said the wrong thing again.

"You'd better not have been about to say you couldn't 'let' me go alone, Jacob Black."

His silence spoke volumes.

"For God's sake, Jake. Isn't it bad enough I grew up with the rest of them hovering over every little movement I made? I'm still amazed none of them followed me, but I'd have understood it if they had. It would've been nothing more than I'm used to."

I heard Mom's sharp intake of breath, but I didn't let me it phase me. Harsh or no, they couldn't deny it was true.

"Ness, listen. I. I mean. There's a. The reason I—"

"Christ, Jake, spit it out already," I said after his third aborted beginning. The lack of answers was dancing on my last nerve, it was true, but that, coupled with Jake's evasions was making a bad situation worse. Rapidly.

Because Jake never stuttered, never stammered. He usually just blundered forward with whatever he wanted to say, whether he'd end up with his foot in his mouth or not. He was born without a filter and it had put him in sticky spots more often than not.

The only logical reason was that he was holding something back. I didn't like that one bit. One thing I'd counted on in my life was Jake and I as a team. Best friends. In each other's corner.

My eyes narrowed as my mind worked through it. "What aren't you telling me?"

His lips just pressed together. And his hands were shaking.

"Jake?"

"I...I can't."

This was wrong. He was supposed to rail back at me just as I railed at him. Jake never backed down from a fight, not with me, not with anyone. I looked behind me for my parents, for anyone who could explain the look on his face, but we were alone on the patio.

I took a step forward and placed my hand on his cheek. I showed him his pained face, his shaking hand, all the things he never did and asked why. Jake didn't answer.

"I can't," he repeated.

His hand raised and covered mine as our eyes held in the dark of the patio. The clouds had cleared enough for the sliver of moonlight to illuminate the back yard to some degree, but neither of us needed it. With our enhanced vision, we saw fine even in pitch black.

For a moment, we were frozen. His warm hand on my skin, our body temperatures the same within a degree of one another on average. I had no thoughts for this, no pictures to send. There was just him. Just me. I heard the deep thrum of his heart beating, felt the flutter of my own as it moved blood through my veins and heated the cheek under Jake's big hand.

Then he was gone in a flash of fur and clothing remnants. I caught just a glimpse of bright eyes far in the distance, his wolf eyes, before he turned and disappeared into the forest.

The moment was gone.

Mom's hand was on my back a moment later, the icy feel of it comforting as nothing else could have been. I needed the polar opposite of Jake right now.

I allowed myself to step into her stone embrace, drawing reassurance from her as I had from the earliest days of my life. As we stood, silent and unmoving, my heart settling into its more natural rhythm and my mind going back over what had just happened with Jake.

"What's going on, Mom? Why wouldn't he answer me? Why did he phase and run like that?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. The wolves have always been volatile."

I turned to look at my mother as we walked back into the house. Things were getting more and more odd by the moment. Mom giving me some bullshit non-answer about Jake? Jake running away from me with no answers at all?

And then it hit me.

The force of the blow was enough to make me stumble.

For Mom. He couldn't be with her the way he wanted, would never be able to have that, so he was giving her what she needed – someone to watch over me when she couldn't do it herself. Why not, she'd chosen Jake for that role when I was a baby, why not carry it forward?

Slowly, I pulled away from my mother's side and she looked at me sympathetically.

"Don't want tea anymore?" she guessed.

"Not really."

"Do you want to run back to the Forks house? I know we'd intended to just stay here since they're all coming back in a few hours, but if you wanted...?" she trailed off, trying to read my blank face.

No. That was too close to Jake. Right now, I needed as much distance from him as I could get.

"No, Mom, it's all right. I'm just tired. Really," I said with as close to a genuine smile as I could muster. "It's all right. I'm going to go take a hot bath, then curl up in bed with a book."

Mom smiled, I was sure, because it was very reminiscent of what she would have done when she was human. Except maybe the bath. Mom had always been a shower person, but I preferred the luxury of warm water and the fun of the bubbles. Nothing relaxed me more.

And I needed to relax. Desperately. I'd been able, so far, to keep the majority of my thoughts from screaming their presence to my father by occupying that side of my mind with multiplication tables.

Aunt Alice, bless her spiky little head, had been a true miracle in showing me just how to think around my father's ability. Most of the time I didn't bother – I didn't like keeping secrets as a rule – but sometimes there was nothing else for it when you wanted a little mental privacy.

And this was definitely one of those times.

BPOV

"Edward?"

I pushed open the door to our bedroom, my eyes seeking him out at once. He was sitting cross –legged in the middle of our bed, his face twisted up like he had headache.

I was next to him before the next unnecessary blink of my eyes. "Edward, what is it?"

"I'm going to rip Alice's arms off for teaching Ness to block me."

"You're going to do no such thing," I said confidently, joining my husband in the middle of our king-sized bed.

"Yes, I am. This time I mean it."

I chuckled. "You've meant it each of the forty other times you've said it as well. Near as I know, you've never so much as removed an eyelash."

I chuckled when he continued to glower at me. I moved in behind him, wrapping my arms around his middle. I rested my chin on his shoulder and turned to kiss his throat. I may have been teasing him about Alice, but at the same time I was worried as well.

Ness rarely blocked her father. Her life was as much an open book as every one else's in the Cullen house. There was no place for artifice with the special gifts that had been bestowed on its members. If Edward didn't hear it, Jasper would sense it, or Alice would see the path you were taking. Secrecy, though possible, wasn't possible for long.

My baby girl was immune from that impossibility as long as Jazz wasn't around. She could block her father, her aunt couldn't see her.

And now she was in her bath, or in her bed, alone with whatever was grieving her.

The mere thought pierced me straight through my long-since frozen heart.

"You didn't get anything from her before she shut down?"

He paused. Not long. Nothing a human would have even registered.

"Edward?"

"No, I didn't get anything at all. Just multiplication tables. In German this time, she's close to fluent in that one now, you know. I th—"

I cut him off with a swift kiss. I knew he thought it was the only way to shut me up when I started to babble. I'd found that it worked just as effectively on him when he was trying to shift my focus away from things he didn't want me questioning too hard.

"Once upon a time you could lie to me, Edward Cullen, but that time is well past us. You did get something," I said, moving around to sit in front of him, holding his face in my hands. "What did you hear?"

"Nothing concrete, nothing clear. It was all garbled as her mind was working so fast with the adrenaline of yelling at Jake and her date, and everything else."

"Stop evading me." My eyes narrowed, zeroing in on his.

"I'm not evading, Bella," he said, his head between my unyielding hands, "I'm just trying to make sense of it."

"What was the last thought you heard before the math started?"

"She was wondering why Jacob would have come all the way up here just to spy on her date, trying to figure it out."

I sighed, because I knew where that road led better than Edward did. We'd both known when she'd first told us about the date that we were entering a crossroads in our daughter's life. A time when, for better or worse, she would make her choice.

"And still nothing about Jake?" It felt like reading her diary, asking Edward if he'd heard her thoughts about Jake, but I did it anyway. Jake was many things, but he was still my best friend and I still wanted the best for him.

If it looked like Ness wouldn't see him as more than a best friend, I wanted to be the one to tell Jake. If I didn't, I was pretty sure Rose would jump at the chance and there was no way in hell I'd let her deliver the news.

"Nothing. And that's odd in and of itself. I've not heard her even mention Jake in her open thoughts for the past few weeks. Not even a stray thought. Just...a blank spot."

"Why would she do that, though? It's not like he's some deep dark secret."

Edward cocked his head to the side. "It might be, to her. We don't talk about," he paused, "about that time much around her. If at all."

"Why would we talk about it? It was a pretty miserable time for everyone, you know?"

"In context, I agree with you," he said, easing us backwards until we were leaning against the headboard and my back was nestled against his front. "But don't you think it's odd she's never questioned us about why Jake is around so much? She knows the history of the treaties as well as any of us, probably better since she spends half her time at La Push. Yet she's never once asked why he's been like an eighth member of the family?"

I had to admit it; he had a point. "Maybe Jake...?"

I trailed off because Edward was already shaking his head. "No, he didn't. I'd have heard that one in his mind."

"You certain about that?"

"Beyond a doubt. Jacob has very distinctive thought patterns, Bella. Even when he's trying to think around me. For instance, when he really wants me out, he concentrates on things he's heard using the pack mind because he knows the minutiae of Paul's day bores me to tears. Did you know that at one point in his life, Paul could belch the alphabet? Apparently, however, he's lost the ability later in life. Tragic."

I couldn't help it. I was laughing and so was Edward. For a moment.

Then our thoughts returned to our daughter.

"One of us is going to have to talk to her," Edward said at last.

"Yes, one of us is," I countered.

"If you think it's going to be me, you're out of your mind, Bella. This one goes strictly under the heading 'mother-daughter' time."

"By whose definition?"

He pulled me more completely into his arms, pushing my hair away to rain kisses on my throat, pulling aside my shirt to continues his assault along my shoulder. "You're trying to distract me."

"No," he said, his voice a whisper in my ear. "I _am_ distracting you." He paused, listened, smiled. "And it's working."

I had no argument. As always, he was right.

NPOV

I was still conflicted when we arrived at school the first Monday morning after The Date. I hadn't spoken to Jake at all on Sunday. Not in person, by cell phone. Not even a text message. It was, near as I could remember, the only time in my entire life that that so long had passed without some sort of communication between us.

I hated it.

"I'm just going to skip today," I told my parents as we pulled into our parking space.

"The hell you are," Dad countered before I could even get past "I'm going". Jake was right. Dad was damned annoying when he did that.

"What, Dad, because I'm going to tank on my SATs if I don't sit through Trig today?"

"That's not what I mean and you know it. Your date took off rather abruptly Saturday night after what you've told me were flashes of images he may or may not have gotten from you. And because I was off making sure Jacob didn't come butting in, I couldn't hear what was in Trey's mind."

"But you said when you went to his house yesterday there wasn't anything strange about his thoughts," I grinned. "Other than his sudden decision to turn in a few movies for credit at the store."

"This isn't funny, Ness," Dad tried for stern, but it didn't quite work. Especially with Mom giggling right along side me.

"Oh come on, Edward, it's a little funny."

Dad looked at Mom and shook his head. "Better than him spending a few hours looking up nonsense on the internet, you mean?"

Mom stuck her tongue out at him.

I was just about to bring up ditching again when Dad went rigid in the driver's seat. His statue impression only lasted a second, though, before he relaxed at turned to Mom. "Well, this is disturbingly familiar."

"What is?" Mom asked him, then followed trained her eyes in the direction he was looking.

She gasped, then she giggled, which made me turn to look as well.

My thoughts must've screamed at Dad because his hand was on my arm before I moved the first muscle. "Human speed, Ness. Much as you want to run flat out, that would be the opposite of inconspicuous. Understand?"

"Yes, Dad," I said, already trying to wrench my arm from his iron grip.

I wrenched the door open and darted out of the car. Dad hissed.

"All right, sorry. Human, right."

Jake was standing across the parking lot, just on the edge of school property, the denim and cotton clinging to all six feet seven inches of him as he leaned against the shiny black Harley he'd rebuilt from scraps years ago.

I'd never found it more difficult to keep a promise to my father, but this one was nearly impossible. I wanted to run, to leap as we'd done when I was a baby. Leap straight into his arms. Stay there and never leave. It was insane, this need I had. I mean, it had only been a bit over 24 hours since I'd seen him. I should be glad to see him, yes, but not this mad, crazy need to close the distance as soon as humanly, or inhumanly, possible.

I lost the battle with my feet about halfway across the parking lot. I didn't run full out as I really wanted, but I managed a close an approximation of a human jog. Whatever. It was better than walking.

"Jake!"

"Ness," he replied and I was staggered to hear the relief in his voice. His arms opened automatically, waiting for me. But I stopped just short of closing the distance between us entirely. Kept my feet on the ground when they would have leapt straight into him.

The comforting reassurance of his presence had erased the anxiety of his absence to the point that I could now remember my anger from the night before. I might understand why he'd followed me on my date – it didn't mean I liked it.

"What are you doing here?" I kept my voice light, nothing accusatory about it at all – a request for information rather than censure.

His arms dropped forlornly, hanging limply at his sides. I stared at his empty arms, his strong hands and felt a pang of loss hit my heart.

I needed help.

"I didn't like the way we left things the other night, Ness," he explained. His voice had lost the sharp edge of relief, but that edge had been replaced by something closer to pain. I didn't like at all.

I lowered my voice. The milling students weren't close, but they weren't that far, either. I could hear the buzz of their voices from here. "You mean when you shredded your clothes all over my back yard and went running for the trees without so much as a goodbye? That way?"

He did, at least, look sheepish. "Yes, like that."

"Why did you, then? Why phase and run off? Why couldn't you answer—"

"I take it you're not here to give warnings this time?"

I spun around as if jolted with a live wire. I hated when my father snuck up on me like that. I hated it even more this time, because I knew his arrival was the probable death of any likelihood that I'd get answers. Today, at least.

"Not as such," Jake said easily. "I'm going to keep from shouting any fun pictures at you, too."

Whatever they were talking about must've been a memory Mom had kept, because there was no confusion in her golden eyes.

Dad's eyes narrowed. Mom smacked Jake's arm and she grinned when he winced, muttering something about paybacks being a bitch. All three of them relaxed after that and Dad leaned over and kissed Mom's temple.

This time, I watched Jake when Dad kissed Mom, searching for something. Surely there would be some sort of reaction, right? But there wasn't. His face was as blasé and uninterested as it would be if he were watching paint dry.

I wondered how long it had taken him to learn that sort of control. I know none of the others in the pack would have been able to watch their imprint being touched, much less kissed, by another man without ripping his arms off. I'd seen Paul nearly behead a man for tapping Rachel on the shoulder to tell her she'd dropped something.

"As much fun as this trip down memory lane must be for you three," I interrupted, "I actually did want to talk to Jake. If that's all right?"

"Of course," Mom said before Dad could counter her. "We'll just head straight off to class right, Edward?"

"Right," he grumbled unenthusiastically as they walked off toward the main building.

"Now then," I said when I turned back to Jake. "Tell me why you..."

"Ness?"

Jake and I both groaned this time, too low for the human to hear us.

Plastering a smile on my face, I turned.

"Hi, Trey," I said with as much interest as I could manage.

"Hi, Ness," he replied, his eyes on Jake and his arm raising to drape across my shoulders. "Who's your friend?"

I didn't like the possessive manner – we'd had one date for God's sake – but I didn't want to make things any more awkward by ducking out from under his arm or by telling him to mind his own business.

"Trey, this is my best friend, Jacob Black. Jake? This is Trey Phillips."

"Best friend?"

"Yes, best friend. I've known him my whole life." I couldn't help it. My eyes darted to Jake's and it was clear we were both thinking the same thing. _All six years of it_. The wry twist of his mouth had me covering my mouth to hide the giggle.

"Nice to meet you," Trey said, his tone saying the exact opposite.

"Likewise," Jake answered.

Silence fell. A very uncomfortable silence. I looked from Jake to Trey, an instant frown forming on my face. Trey looked like he was in pain.

Then I realized that Jake still had Trey's hand. Trey's very red hand.

"Jake!"

Trey pulled his hand back the second Jake released it, automatically flexing his fingers to check for breaks. I guessed there weren't any – a small miracle in and of itself. I knew Jake's strength first hand.

I spun around and glared at him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked, my voice a low hiss.

"Delivering a message," Jake said easily, "just like your Dad guessed."

"And that message is?" I shot back, my voice rising in my anger.

"It wasn't for you."

"Who was it for?"

"Me," Trey said and I jumped a little. I'd completely forgotten he was there.

I looked between Jake and Trey then back again. They were both shooting glares at one another. Jake looked menacing, Trey looked like a two-year old who was being denied a cookie. It was starting to piss me off.

I figured I could easily deal with Trey later, but the bell was about to ring and my time with Jake was limited. Limited? Hell, at this point I wasn't sure when I'd ever see him again if he kept shit like this up.

Ignoring Trey, I turned to face Jake. "Now you listen here, Jacob Black," I said, poking a finger into his chest, "it's not down to you to go around delivering messages to anyone about anything. I'm all grown up now and, believe it or not, able to make my own decisions. So you can just piss right the fuck off and leave me alone, all right? I'm used to this from Dad and...and all the others going papa bear on me. I'd rather not deal with it from you as well."

I knew I was going to have to end this discussion soon. I rarely, if ever, slipped up in school and just now I'd called my father "Dad" with a fellow student in hearing distance. Granted, it was a simple mistake and I hadn't done anything to clarify that I'd meant the boy they all knew as Edward, but still. Stupid mistakes like that were what usually led to the family moving on and I was not about to be the reason for that.

"Ness, it's not like that," Jake was saying, pulling me from my thoughts.

"Oh really? Then tell me, Jake, what is it like?" My mouth twisted into a rueful smile when he couldn't find an answer to that one. "That's what I thought. Now, if you'll excuse me? We've got to go to class."

I let Trey lead me a few steps before I looked up. Big mistake. I saw Trey looking back over his shoulder at Jake just as he put his arm around me and shoot Jake a smug look.

"Oh for fuck's sake. What is it with guys? Wouldn't it just be easier to pull out your penises, compare sizes and be done with it straight off?"

I shrugged out from under Trey's arm and stomped myself towards class. I saw my parents standing just inside the school, Dad's arm over Mom's shoulder, but I didn't stop. I didn't even look at them. I just kept marching straight for Trig. I thought I heard Dad mutter "uh oh" but I wasn't sure and didn't care enough to stop and ask. If it was vital, they'd tell me in the car on the way home.

I flopped into my chair and pulled out my text and notebook, and started making little doodles on the first sheet of blank paper.

Ignoring the incredibly subtle, and increasingly loud, throat clearings from my friend Kat, I kept doodling. I wasn't in the mood to be grilled, either about what had just happened in the parking lot or about Saturday night's date. I just wanted a few minutes to sit and sulk, and pretend I was happy on the moral high ground, and not utterly miserable.

Because even though I knew it was stupid, there was a part of me, a stupid, impossible little part, that wished he wasn't going all Alpha on Trey because he was doing a favor for Mom.

I wished, though I'd deny it with my last breath, that Jake was jealous.


	6. Chapter 6

JPOV

I should have known it was a bad idea to go to the house.

Not because of treaties, or vampires and wolves being in the same place with their volatile tempers, not even because even now Blondie and I had a hard time not snarling at one another when in the same physical space.

I should have known because Bella's new brothers were a combined pain in my ass who thought themselves amateur comedians. And took every available opportunity to practice.

My turning up was all the excuse they needed.

Their routine had started when the family had lived in England and, much to my great hatred, hadn't ended when we returned to the US a year later. Nor had it ended in the 3 years since. If anything, it had gotten worse.

I heard the song start when my feet hit the porch. In the intervening years, they'd perfected the timing and were able, no matter how I lengthened or shortened my stride, to reach the chorus the second I walked through the door and into the kitchen.

"A wooo," Jasper crooned out as I opened the back door.

"Werewolves of London," Emmett chimed in after him.

"Ya hear him howlin' round your kitchen door," Jasper sang.

"Better not let 'em in," Emmett answered.

I flipped both of them off and continued through the kitchen to the main living area. It didn't matter what I said, or didn't say. They'd still do it every time I came to the house. And my answering finger while not a deterrent, at least made me feel better.

Bella and Edward were sitting curled up on the couch. Bella smiled up at me and patted the seat next to her on the sofa but I was too keyed up to sit. I paced instead. I wasn't the mind reader, but I knew the many tones of Bella's voice. She had something to tell me – and whatever it was, I wasn't going to like it.

Emmett and Jasper were still singing in the kitchen.

"I'd like to meet your tailor," Edward commented idly.

I growled and bared my human teeth at him.

"All right, enough of this," she said, then paused and called out a little louder. "Enough!"

Silence fell at once though Emmett managed to get one more Awooo in there before I heard a small voice hiss. Alice? Probably. I'd thank Shortie later for that one.

"Jake, please, sit down. You're making me dizzy."

"Why'd you call me over here?" I said at the same time.

Edward and Bella looked at each other, then back at me and a sick feeling started to crawl up my spine. Their posture was tense, stiff. Not quite at full statue, but their entire bearing screamed uncomfortable. I was wrong.

Bad news.

I felt my stomach roll.

"What? What's wrong, what's happened?"

My body went on immediate alert. My hands shook as I stretched out with my senses, trying to find Ness somewhere in the house, but I came up empty. No recent scent, no flutter of bird's wings. She wasn't here.

"Where's Ness?" I started looking around. "Where is she, Bells? Tell me." My voice was rising in my panic. I hadn't seen her, or spoken to her, in 30 hours and it was taking its toll on me. This added to it was almost too much.

The cold hand on my arm stopped my tirade, if not my panic. "Relax, Jake. She's fine, off shopping with Esme and Rosalie.

I heard the same soft hiss and Bella laughed a little. Edward laughed. "They're shopping for Alice's birthday present. Ever since that Christmas Jasper used Ness' blind spot to keep her present from her, everyone's been doing it. Alice is still pissed off."

Normally that would have given me at least a smile, but I was still too worried about Ness. And why Bella and her bloodsucker had called me here.

"You keep forgetting that Bella's a bloodsucker now too," Edward corrected, a hint of a smile on his face.

"Yes, I do. Doing a damned find job of it, too. Now stop fucking dodging the question." I glared at both of them.

Bella took a deep, unnecessary breath. "After your little visit to the school yesterday, Edward overheard something in Ness' thoughts about you."

"So she thought of me. Why the hell did I have to run here all the way from Forks to hear it? I mean surely she's—"

"Maybe if you let Bella finish rather than continuously interrupting her, your questions would get answered," Edward offered in a casually menacing voice.

Eight years I'd known Edward Cullen and he still annoyed the fuck out of me.

"Mutual," Edward muttered and Bella smacked him.

"What was that for?"

"I know you two well enough that whenever you agree it's something I wouldn't approve of. I'd've smacked Jake too, but he was too far away."

Edward's voice dropped a little. Right. Like he'd forgotten my hearing was almost as good as theirs. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

I saw where he was headed a second after he moved and coughed. Loudly. "Hey. If it's all the same can we get back to what you were saying before you two start making out right in front of me," he paused, then sighed, "again?"

Bella giggled her windchime laugh and we all knew if she still had blood, she'd be blushing. It was one of the refreshing things after her change; even though her body didn't have exactly the same reactions, it was still easy enough to figure out what human Bella would be doing.

"Of course, Jake, sorry. It's just. Well, we've got a little problem. About Ness and your imprinting. It seems—"

I held up my hand. "I've never let on, not once—"

"Good God, is it physically impossible for you to let her finish a sentence?"

Bella cleared her throat. "It seems that Ness has deduced that you did imprint," Bella said. She paused and took another breath she didn't need. "She thinks you imprinted on me, Jake."

I looked from Bella to Edward to the kitchen. I was waiting for someone to yell April Fools, even though it was March. For some snicker, cackle, some indication of a laugh from somewhere.

But the only thing that greeted me was dead silence.

"Oh fuck," I summarized.

I shouldn't have been surprised when I found her on the overlook, shouldn't have been surprised that I had been drawn there like a magnet towards North. After all, I'd been drawn to Renesmee. Since before she was born. For all intents, she was _my_ North.

Because of our recent separations, and the fact that I hadn't seen her in way too long, the second I felt myself pulled to the forest, I stripped, grabbed my shorts in my mouth and phased. I was running within seconds, I was with her a mere ten minutes later.

The knot of tension I'd been harboring in my stomach lessened when I was beside her again. I padded up behind her and snuffled at her long, bronze curls with my nose.

"Hi, Jake," she said softly, looking down over the stray lights from homesteads below us. "I'm glad you came."

So was I, I wanted to say. Instead I rested my head on her shoulder and pressed my furry cheek to her bare one. It was a moment of connection I needed, and if her soft sigh was any indication, she did as well.

But nothing would be solved this way. I might find things easier to bear as a wolf, but I needed to be human if we were going to solve anything. After one soft press of my head to hers, I stepped backwards and into the shelter of the trees. As I phased back and pulled my shorts on, I told myself to be cool, calm, that there was a way out of this nightmare if we only talked rationally about it.

Unfortunately, I'd never been one for rational.

"What are you doing here, Ness? It's the middle of the night. Do your parents...did you come this way alone?" I was in front of her in the next second, my hands gripping her arms.

Her own calm was broken, anger stirring behind her brown eyes. A reaction, no doubt, to my confrontational manner.

"Yes, I did," she answered, her back ramrod straight and pure defiance in her eyes. "Or did you need another reminder that I'm not helpless?" With a twist of her shoulders, she wrenched herself free of my grip.

The loss of contact more than anything had me in full back-track mode. I had to have some sense of diplomacy in me somewhere, right? I could almost hear the leech laughing.

"I know that." I ran a hand through my hair. "Force of habit for me to worry, I guess."

"Break it," Ness said simply, her eyes boring into mine. "I've got enough protectors, Jake. I don't need another one."

The word slipped straight through me, piercing through to my very soul. It was a part of my whole being to give this girl what she needed, to be what she needed.

I didn't know what would happen if she didn't need me anymore; finding out for certain terrified me.

Years ago, I'd felt a chasm open before me – the endless abyss of grief that would be my life when Bella died. I'd thought at the time that I could see it clearly, I could even feel the pain that was waiting to claw at my soul.

That was nothing more than an ache compared to the pain that was inching its way up my spine right now.

My voice, when I found it, was nothing but a hoarse whisper. "What do you need then, Ness?"

I didn't breathe while I awaited her answer; I'm not even sure my heart beat.

"I need the truth, Jake," she said, her musical voice soft, almost pleading. "I need my best friend."

The relief that flooded me over not being summarily excised from her life due to my own inherent stupidity was so all-encompassing that I nearly staggered. Whatever else was wrong, she was still mine and I was still hers. For now, it was enough. We could work out the rest.

"Ask me anything, Ness," I said, glad to hear my voice had returned to normal. "I've never lied to you, I'm not going to start now."

Her eyebrow raised. "Now why don't I believe that?"

Our eyes met in the dim moonlight, her gaze challenging mine. I capitulated. "I haven't," I repeated, then, after a pause, "no outright lies, anyway. Lies by omission are another creature altogether."

Her ringing laugh was a balm to my soul.

I smiled back, feeling the pieces of my life shift back into place. I held out a hand to her. The sense of rightness only increased when I felt her small fingers against my own. This. This was what it was supposed to be.

We sat, as ever, her back to my front, our legs stretched out in front of us.

"Jake, why haven't you ever found anyone? Or gone off with Leah and made little wolflets? Your physical age is about your chronological age now. Most of your pack is paired off except for the younger ones. Why haven't you?"

The question stunned me. I'd never expected this. I'd honestly expected her to come straight out and ask about Bella.

"I just haven't found the right person," I muttered. It sounded hollow even to my ears. "And Leah's just a friend, you know that. A friend and my second. Not sure how long she can keep that position, though. She hasn't phased in months and it looks as though it'll stick this time. I'm going to have to rework things."

Ness ignored my pack mumblings. She had a crease over the bridge of her nose, something else she'd inherited from her mother. There were Things On Her Mind and nothing I said was going to deter her.

"Why won't you just tell me, Jake?"

"I would if I knew what you wanted me to tell you."

I felt her whole body take the breath in, another trait she'd taken from her mother. Bella always drew in deep before she dropped the bomb.

"That the reason you're alone, the reason you spend so much time with me, with a coven of your natural enemies, is because you imprinted on my mother and it's the only way you can stay close to her!"

Ness maneuvered up and out of my arms and started pacing around the clearing.

I was too stunned to speak. Even though Bella'd told me this was what Ness thought, hearing it was something else altogether.

"Say it, Jake. Just tell me, once and for all."

Every part of me wanted to do just that – to end the charade, to come out and tell her the absolute God honest truth and be done with it.

Then my mind conjured the same image it had taunted me with since I came to this decision – Ness' face as she stared into mine, not with friendship or love, but with confusion and suspicion.

No. Not that way.

So I gave her what she needed, and ignored what I wanted.

I stood and walked over to her, stopping her pacing with a hand to her arm. I moved to stand in front of her, then took her face in my hands.

"Listen to me, Renesmee," I said softly, capturing her eyes with my own, "I have known your mother for years, both human and vampire. And I never, in all that time, imprinted on her. I swear it on my own mother's grave."

It was amazing, I thought as our eyes held, how easy it was to sound utterly sincere when you were telling the truth. I felt her body accept my words before they truly registered on her face. The tension left her shoulders, her jaw unclenched. She blinked, breaking the connection.

"Then why, Jake?"

"Why what, why do I hang around?"

She nodded.

I was proud of myself; I didn't even pause. "She may be a vampire, my natural enemy and all that, but she's still my best friend, Ness. Whatever else changed, that never did."

"But you loved her once," Ness said, a determined crease forming between her eyebrows.

"Yes, I did." My agreement this time was more grudging, owing more to my inability to lie than to a desire to relive the fun-filled months that lead in no small part to me spending three straight months as a wolf.

"And it just, what, went away?"

I didn't answer, I couldn't. But I had to. "Something like that."

"Right. Course it did. Because everyone knows just how fickle you are, right?"

She lifted her hands and ran them both over her face. Her voice was muffled, but I could make out the words easy enough. "So much for promises."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing, Jake, it means nothing," she said. She'd moved away from me and was now leaning against one of the trees enclosing our little lookout. She looked so...lost, I had no choice but to go to her, to try and comfort her. No matter how difficult and impossible it felt. My hands settled on her shoulders, thumbs grazing her neck. "Talk to me, Ness."

"Talk to you? _Talk_ to _you_? I've done nothing but talk to you, Jacob Black. I've talked to you my whole life. But no one ever talks to me, no one ever tells me..."

"Tells you what?" I pressed, my anger rising with her frustration. "What exactly do you want us to tell you, Ness?"

"I want to know what happened between you and my mother!"

"Why? Why is dredging all that up so important to you?"

I watched it happen. Watched the anger flare in her deep brown eyes, heard the hiss of indrawn breath and felt her entire body stiffen beneath my touch. The emotions coursing through her, whatever they were, were so intense that she lost her words. Her mouth was working, but no sound came out. Instead, she raised a shaking hand and placed it on my cheek.

Beneath my hands, Ness was panting and trembling from the emotions wracking her rigid body. As ever, the images she shared with me took on the properties of the woman showing them – disjointed and spastic. For the first time in forever, I couldn't understand what she was showing me.

The intimacy of the moment was such that when my voice came, it was barely louder than a whisper. "Slower, Ness, I don't understand."

She sighed softly and closed her eyes. I could see her try to steady herself, watch as she slowed her breathing, feel as she tried to loosen the tension from her shoulders.

Then I couldn't see anything but what she showed me.

I saw Bella's face first. Then Bella, Edward and I at the school, then a rapid burst of other times, moments Ness had seen between Bella and me – smiles, hugs, laughter, teasing. Small, insignificant moments that Ness had seen and held in her memory...but why?

I didn't ask my question, because I knew Ness wasn't finished. Hopefully, there would be time for questions later.

She lifted her hand briefly then put it back on my cheek. I saw her face before my eyes, and I lost myself under the images she shared with me. It was just like what she'd done in this very spot when we'd come here last week – Ness' memories of our life together. There were so many. I treasured each and every one and, I realized, so did Ness. I was amazed how far back her memory stretched and I smiled when I saw the little girl she'd been leap into my arms to snatch a snowflake out of the sky. By this time her memories were coming at me so fast, I had to close my eyes to see them clearly – see and savor each one.

In hindsight, that wasn't the best move I could have made. With my eyes closed, I never saw her coming. I had no time to brace, no time to prepare, no hope of escape.

Then I felt her move; then I felt her lips on mine.

And I was lost.

For the whole of her life, save the last few months, I'd never thought of Ness this way. I know Edward thought it was because I didn't want him ripping me to pieces, but that wasn't it – I just hadn't seen her that way. Our life, our friendship, her happiness – that was the focus.

Over the last few months, however, that had changed. I'd started to see her as a woman, as this woman, warm in my arms. My nights went from peaceful to suddenly overtaken with fantasies in a way they hadn't been since Bella was human.

It had taken nearly everything I had, but I'd managed to quash these fantasies from my mind, conscious and subconscious. Because it was too much, not enough, and a very dangerous road – a road that led to Edward dismembering me for even daring to harbor such thoughts about his daughter.

Maybe if I'd let my imagination go occasionally, let it play through this scenario once or twice in the safety of my dreams, I would have been better prepared.

Or maybe there was simply no preparing for something like this.

As her lips shifted over mine, as her body moved closer, and against, mine, wave after wave of pure emotion flooded me. There was need, yes, but it was overshadowed. Love, completion, Ness. My Renesmee. As she'd been, as she'd always be.

Mine.

In that moment, I was lost to her, lost in her, and I let myself fall into bliss. The incredible taste of her mouth, the soft warmth of her lips beneath mine. It was mind-scrambling. And I wanted more.

I groaned and closed the last inch of space between us, pressing her strong body against the tree at her back. It was the more I'd been looking for, feeling her hard, warm body against mine in all the right places. My hands slid up to fist in her soft curls, grabbing handfuls to hold her to me, to keep her with me in this endless moment.

Another groan sounded between us when her warm tongue slipped between my lips. I didn't know whose voice it was. It didn't matter.

My brain woke up the second her tongue touched mine.

 _What the fuck are you doing, Jake?_

I jumped backwards as if she'd shocked me. Distance. I needed distance.

"No!" Her voice echoed what every fiber of my being wanted to scream.

"Ness, this is...no. It can't...I can't..." I couldn't. Couldn't be doing this. Right? Why couldn't I again?

My brain was more scrambled than Emily's eggs. It was trying to be rational, to keep my mind on the proper path, but it kept going back to the kiss, and my hands were trying to raise, reaching for her, wanting nothing more than to pull her back to me, to feel her against me, her lips under mine again.

I dropped my head into my hands, partially to keep them from reaching for her, but also to try and work my mind around to where it needed to be. Because everything in me was rebelling against what I knew had to be said.

"Jake," she whispered, her voice trembling. The resignation in her voice nearly undid me completely. "I know you think of me as a little kid, but I'm not. I'm not my age. Granddad said the growth is slowing so much I'm as close to full grown as I'll ever be."

"It's not...that," I managed. Because it wasn't. Time meant little to those of us who didn't age. It was just one more thing. Hadn't I watched her grow, bloom from the precocious infant to the beautiful, breathtaking young woman before me now? Did it matter that it had only taken seven years for her to make that journey? No. And it never would. What mattered was—

Her voice broke through the fractured musings of my own mind. "I thought so. At least I tried." My head snapped up to find her face when I heard the tears in her voice, but she was already gone, leaving nothing but rustling branches in her wake.

NPOV

My anger was spent after the first mile, exorcised from me as I ripped branches from the trees I'd passed or hurled boulders from my path.

The mortification, I was sure, would take a little longer.

I paced the outer edge of the trees lining the back yard of our house until I was certain that I had myself under control, or a reasonable facsimile of it.

I had my mind occupied to keep Dad out. The rest I could manage with a shower, a good night's rest, and time. Thankfully, I didn't run into anyone as I walked through the back door or up the stairs. I wasn't in control enough to talk to anyone just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I made it through my shower, through drying my hair and ridding myself of the last of Jake's scent, and back into my room without incident. I thought, for that moment, that everything would be fine. Just fine. I could get through this, I could get over it and get passed it and...and then I pressed my lips together.

And I felt his lips on mine instead.

I was lost.

I curled up on my bed, closed my eyes, and let the memories take me.

Memories of his warm lips against mine, the hard planes of his chest pressed into my softer ones, his hand tangled in my hair as if keeping me there, as if he was afraid I'd somehow get away.

Right. Because that'd been a possibility.

Unaware of what I was doing, I reached down to my bedroom floor. My fingers closed over the sweater I'd been wearing in the forest. I brought it to my nose and inhaled.

Jake. My Jake.

I was no stranger to physical affection. Living in this house, it was unavoidable that you'd walk in on someone. Uncle Jasper and Aunt Alice on the back patio, my grandparents in the study, Mom and Dad on the stairs – it was like the game Clue, but with kissing. Hell, I'd even caught my human grandparents at it.

Surrounded as I'd been, it was impossible to not be a little curious. Okay, a lot curious. When I'd kissed Trey to alleviate that curiosity, I'd been nonplussed. If that was what kissing was like, I couldn't see what all the ducking-into-alcoves was all about. It just hadn't been all that fabulous. Kind of silly, actually.

But now I knew.

I knew in that first magic touch of my lips to his, I knew when I first sensed the foreign taste on my tongue that could be nothing but Jake, I knew in the first mingled breath we shared.

I knew when his body angled perfectly against mine, hard to soft, warm to warmer. Knew, and wanted more. It had been as if my body had caught fire. It caught at my breath, sped my already rapid pulse, and drew a moan from deep within my soul as my tongue probed forward, and my whole being reached for more.

But then he'd pulled from me, jumped back like I was something repulsive, and he'd shut down completely. Face closed off, brow furrowed.

"Damn you, Jacob Black," I muttered to the empty room and tossed my sweater across the room.

It was caught in mid-air by my father, who was leaning against the door jamb. "If I had a mountain lion for every time I said that, I'd never have to leave home."

I knew he meant it as a joke, but I'd never felt further from laughter than I did in this moment. Instead, I felt tears prick the sides of my eyes, felt one fall from my lashes. Dad was on the bed and cradling me in his granite embrace before the tear dropped.

"What is it, Ness?"

I couldn't answer. I just shook my head.

"Did he...?" Dad broke off, but I could hear the strain in his voice, the change in his body from stone to statue.

"It's not Jake, Daddy, it's me."

Whatever I felt about Jake's backing away from me, it wasn't his fault. I'd assaulted him, come at him like a drunk prom date. He was right to have stopped me, pushed me away.

It wasn't Jake's fault it felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest.

The tears came again, faster and harder this time, soaking into my father's shirt. He held me through all of it, his cool hand stroking my hair, his soft voice singing me the lullaby he'd written for me during the horrendous days while we waited for Mom's transformation.

Even on the edge of consciousness, I remembered that day. My hand raised and I placed it on his cheek. Mom's motionless body, me on Dad's lap, the song he'd written for me the only sound in the room.

"That's right, baby girl," Dad said softly. "It looked hopeless then, too. But it worked out. This will, too."

I wondered, as I dropped into sleep, just when my father had become such an optimist.


	7. Chapter 7

BPOV

"No, you can't break him in two, Edward," I answered my husband as he paced the length of our room, hands clenching and unclenching.

"I thought it was agony listening to you cry yourself out over that dog, but I was wrong. This. This was beyond agony, beyond the tenth level of hell. He hurt my little girl and made her cry." His eyes went completely unfocused; his own words had ramped up his anger. "I'm going to kill him."

Thankfully, I knew the spring was coming before it did and managed to get to the window before him. "No, you're not."

"Isabella Marie Cullen. Get out of my way."

I couldn't help it, I laughed. "Ooo, the middle name. I must be in serious trouble now."

"You're not a newborn anymore, you can't stop me."

"Not by brute force, no. But I can tell you that you'll be sleeping in the tree house for a while if you don't knock this off and get yourself under control. Edward," I said, softening my voice. I reached up and placed my hand gently on his cheek, using touch to get under the haze of anger surrounding him. It didn't work; he was practically vibrating with his fury.

So I did the next best thing. I lifted my shield and went straight for his mind.

 _You said yourself that Ness told you she wasn't crying over anything Jake did._

His eyes flew to mine and I watched as my thoughts did what nothing else could...calm a vampire's raging anger. I didn't know if this would work on every vampire, but it worked on mine and that was all that mattered.

His teeth unclenched, his shoulders relaxed and his eyes focused again. He was still angry, but it wasn't the uncontrolled rage of a few moments ago. Jake could make it up to me later.

"Yeah, she did." Edward grumbled back at me, "but he was involved."

I raised my hands and placed both of them on Edward's face. "And you know that how?" I looked into his eyes, searching. "You heard something from her." It wasn't a question.

He sighed and rested his forehead against mine. "It was just a flash, like she was repositioning her control for a better grip, but it was enough. She was thinking about Jacob."

"Of course she was, you said she was upset with him."

"Not that way, Bella," he sighed and pulled back enough to look at me. There was only one thing that could put that particular, and pained expression on Edward's face.

"Ohhhh," I nodded, a smile slowly curving the corners of my mouth. I tried to stop the smile, especially when I saw Edward's answering scowl, but I didn't quite manage it. "I'm guessing she's no longer in need of a big brother or best friend?"

"No," Edward grudgingly agreed. We could both hear the unspoken "damnit." "But from the tone of her thoughts, she thinks it impossible."

I cocked my head to the side, confused. "Because of the imprint?"

"I don't know. Like I said, it was just a little flash into her mind. The words I heard clearly were Jake, and impossible."

I sighed. For the first time, I shared Edward's frustration for Alice teaching Ness to block her father so effectively. As the rest of us rarely bothered (even Ness hadn't bothered until recently), I wasn't used to guesswork when it came to my family.

"Well, regardless of what Ness is thinking, it's time, Edward."

He didn't need to ask what I meant. "I—"

I stopped him with a look. "If she's crying her eyes out over the impossibility of it all, her needs have changed, love. You know it and now it's time Jake does too."

"Most would call that meddling, Bella," Edward hedged. "They can…"

I stopped him with two fingers to his lips. "This isn't a normal situation and you know it. The denial he's lived with for the last six years is so much a part of him, he won't trust his own instincts without a push. Besides," I said, my smile quirked again, "he's not exactly smooth in the courtship arena, if you'll remember."

He was fighting it, but I could see the crooked smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. "You're referring to his near death experience when he kissed you?"

I giggled and flexed the fingers of my once broken hand. "If you'll remember, you said yourself once that she could do worse."

"I also said it went against the grain," he reminded me. But the hostility was gone, resignation taking its place in his stance and in his face. Step one complete...onto step two.

I slid my hands down his arms and took his hands, squeezing them. "So, how are we going to do this?"

"Do what?"

"Get the two of them together," I smirked, leading him towards the bed.

"Oh no. Not a chance, Bella. I am not playing matchmaker between my daughter and a werewolf."

"Shapeshifter," I corrected.

"Whichever. There's no way in hell."

I was already reaching for the hem of his sweater when the back of my legs hit the bed.

"No?"

"No, Bella. They'll just have to muddle through on their own like the rest of us."

My fingers brushed against the flat of his stomach. "Even if it's what makes her happy?"

Edward groaned. "You don't play fair."

"I never said I did," I laughed. "So which is it? Help things along or," I paused, my clever fingers popping open the fastener to his khakis, "a long stay in the tree house."

"Empty threat," Edward muttered against my neck. "We don't have a tree house."

"I'll build one," I countered, unhooking his trousers and pushing them down his hips.

"Esme'd have to let you near a hammer first," he grinned as my sweater flew across the room. "After the fiasco with the floor in our house, that's not likely." My t-shirt followed the sweater.

"All right then," I gasped, his hands making it difficult to form words, much less thoughts. "I'd see to it that you'd not see me naked for a good long time." The quiver in my voice made my threat almost completely groundless.

"You'd never make it that long," he chuckled, lifting me into his arms and carrying me to the bed.

"You're not _that_ irresistible," I grouched, knowing it for a lie. Based on the smirk, he did too.

"Shall I leave then?" He asked, his face the picture of innocence.

I had a moment to take in his now completely bare body before me. I sighed and rolled over, away from him.

"If you want," I whispered, the grin forming again on my face now that he couldn't see it. I counted to ten.

He was beside me when I reached two, covering me when I reached three, and his growl was reverberating against the skin of my neck before I reached five.

"I win," I laughed, my fingers skimming his back, the planes of his stomach.

"It's a draw," he chuckled back, then effectively ended all further conversation.

JPOV

I'd tried to have a normal day. I really had. I'd gotten up... No, that implied sleeping. I'd left the tangled mess of my sheets – made breakfast and then I'd come out to the garage to work on the car.

What did it matter if all of this had happened at four in the morning. At least I wasn't wallowing.

I was beating an old car to death, but I wasn't wallowing.

"Jacob?" Bella's voice spoke near my ear, her cold hand on my arm.

The hammer flew straight out of my hand and somehow ended up in Edward's when Bella spoke. I should have been pissed that they'd snuck up on me, but at the moment I couldn't care less. Probably why the sound, and smell, of their approach hadn't registered with me. I wondered idly if I'd've noticed a herd of elephants running across the Rez.

I snorted to myself. Some protector I was; the great Alpha so fucking flustered by the wreck of his own life a pair of vampires ran straight across the place to tap him on the shoulder.

I needed to get over this. To get past it. To stop thinking about it. Stop obsessing over how she tasted...

Bella and I both turned towards the door to the garage. Edward hadn't followed her into the garage, choosing instead to stay just outside of it. Avoiding the stench he'd told me once. But he wasn't leaning on the doorway anymore. He'd dropped to his knees and was nearly writhing.

"Oh, God!" His hands went up to clutch his own head.

"Edward!" Bella was at his side less than a second later.

He raised his tortured looking eyes to hers. "Shield, Bella. Please."

I'd been as confused as Bella until that moment, wondering what could possibly be hurting the leech, but his comment cleared it up. He must've seen just what I'd seen before he dropped – my memory of the cliff top. And Ness. Served him right, in my opinion. Go skipping through people's minds uninvited, you're going to see things you don't like.

I rolled my eyes at the melodrama, Bella just looked confused. "What?"

"Remember Jacob's vivid mental pictures? He's doing it again, and believe me, you don't want to see what's in there."

"Very funny, bloodsucker," I snorted. I did what I could to put the images from my mind, to bury them behind other thoughts, but it wasn't easy. I was too surprised, now that the shock was wearing off, that I wasn't crushed beneath Edward having the breath choked from my body.

"It's tempting," Edward muttered from his position on the floor. Years may have passed and new understandings sprung up between us, but I still hated when he did that.

Bella shook her head at Edward's cryptic comments and turned to me instead. "What is he talking about, Jacob? What's happened?" She turned to Edward. "What's tempting?"

"Ness and I talked last night," I said simply, hoping, stupidly of course, that they'd leave it at that. They didn't.

"We know. And we gather things didn't go, ah, smoothly," Bella said, ever the diplomat. "But what does that have to do with Edward acting like Jane stopped by for target practice?"

"Nothing," I said.

"You don't want to know," Edward said at the same time. "Believe me." But something about the vampire's face told me at least half of his actions were an act. He'd been able to hear me from at least three miles off at one point, and despite my non-wallowing, I'd been thinking of her constantly since the moment she'd left me the night before. No matter his writhing, it wasn't a complete shock.

Bella got her Serious Face on and continued darting her eyes between us. "Yes. I. Do."

I looked to see if her foot was tapping. It wasn't. That meant we weren't in immediate danger of her ripping us to shreds, but we were getting close. Then Edward gave in to her. Surprise, surprise.

"You really want the image of Jacob kissing our little girl against a tree trunk in your head? If so, kindly remove it from mine and it's yours."

Edward barely got the words out before Bella was twisting back towards me. "You did... _what?"_

I was reminded in a blinding flash of Bella's first day as a vampire, the day she'd learned I'd imprinted on Ness. Automatically, my hand went to my own throat.

"Smart move," Edward commented across the garage. "Course, you've got it a bit backwards, Jacob."

With my eyes still on Bella, making sure she wasn't about to separate my head from my shoulders, I addressed the vampire on the floor. "What d'you mean, backwards?"

"I mean you've been sitting there berating yourself since before we even arrived about your stupidity in kissing Ness and fucking everything up."

"Yeah...and? I'm still not seeing what I've got backwards."

"You didn't kiss Ness, Jacob," he paused and turned his head to look at Bella, "she kissed you."

Bella straightened then and her eyes shifted from mine to Edward's. "She did?"

"Yep. Almost attacked him with it," then he muttered something so low even my ears didn't quite catch it. But it sounded close to "like mother, like daughter."

"Isn't that interesting," Bella commented. She walked over to Edward and placed herself next to him until they stood, shoulder to shoulder, facing me.

I was stunned. I knew her reactions were faster now, but I'd never seen her go from pissed to purring so quickly. Something was up. I couldn't bring myself to care what, though. I just wanted them to go and leave me to my non-wallowing.

I 'd danced to Bella's and Edward's tune for too many years now, losing out every single time. Couldn't they, for once, just leave me to my gloom? "If you two don't need me for this conversation anymore, you mind running the stench out of here?"

Bella merely smiled at me then turned back to Edward. "He doesn't get it, does he?"

"No, he doesn't," Edward answered. "Which means we can just go back home, right? "

Bella poked him in the chest. "No, it doesn't. But I'm sure you can find some level of satisfaction by pointing out the obvious?"

"Doubtful, but I'll give it a shot."

I groaned and moved back over to the car, bending over the hood, banging loudly against the metal inside to make my point that I wasn't listening anymore. Not that either of them paid the slightest bit of attention. They never did.

Didn't matter. Edward started talking; I started pounding.

"Jacob, I realize you don't have a great deal of experience in the matter..."

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"...say it's a clear indication that someone's _needs_ have..."

Bang. BANG. Bang.

"...changed if that someone initiates such personal contact."

There was a satisfying crack when my hammer hit the drive shaft. I looked up in the answering silence. "Are you two still here?"

"Maybe if I had this conversation with the wall, I'd make better progress," Edward said, more to Bella than me. I ignored him...and kept on hammering. I'd had about enough of the bloodsucker for one day. Lifetime. Whatever.

"You get the feeling we're not making any progress?"

"It's the thick head," Bella commented, and I looked at her from the corner of my eye to see her flexing her right hand, "nearly impossible to crack. Maybe if we just leave him to think it over? Some thoughts have to churn around in his head for a while before he clues in."

I had tuned them out so successfully that I only knew that they'd left when a breeze through the open doors of the garage brought with it nothing but the forest smell. No trace of that cloyingly sweet vampire stench. My shoulders relaxed and I straightened from my crouch over the car's engine compartment and looked behind me. They were gone.

I didn't want to think, but the thoughts were there just the same, each one poking at me like small needles under my skin. I couldn't stop thinking about Ness' kiss, her body against mine, the incredible softness of her lips...couldn't stop grinding my teeth over Edward's reiteration of letting Ness choose based on her needs.

Hadn't I promised that years ago?

Had I ever shirked that promise? Well, save a few hours ago, no, I hadn't.

I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over my face. This was impossible.

I thought I heard a growl off in the distance, but I didn't care enough to investigate. I had to get out of here. Get out of this body. Bella'd once said she liked me better as a wolf, and sometimes I did, too. Why else would I have spent three months in this form, shunning all humanity?

I shucked my jeans and phased on the spot, loping into the nearby woods, concentrating on nothing more than the forest beneath my paws.

I didn't know how far I'd gone before Seth caught up with me. A hundred miles? Two? No less than that to be certain. I wasn't sure if I was even in the United States any longer. Not that customs minded much about a few wolves passing through. It's not like I was bringing anything with me.

I'd heard the others as I ran, Brady and Embry running their patrol on the far side of the Rez, Seth running off on his own. I didn't recognize where he was, there was a fuzzy quality to his thoughts about the forest around him that made me think he might need glasses.

As they always did, my thoughts drifted as I ran. And, again as always, they drifted to Ness.

I wasn't sure if it was the bloodsucker's visit, but I found myself remembering that day, unarguably the worst 24 hour period of my life. The highest high, the lowest low. From Edward hearing Ness's thoughts and losing what little hope I had, the fight to save Bella, and her. Seeing her. Feeling my world reorient itself around the precious bundle in Blondie's arms.

Baring tragedy, I will live forever. And in that forever, I will never forget when Esme placed Ness in my arms for the first time, a few hours after her birth.

 _"You're out of your mind," Blondie shrieked at Esme, "if you think I'm going to willingly hand this baby over to a dog."_

 _"Right, because the vampire who nearly drained her mother of what little blood she had left is_ so _much safer."_

 _"Shut it you—"_

 _"Enough!" Esme interjected loudly. It was the closest I'd ever heard her come to yelling in all the time I'd spent here._

 _It must've been rarer than I thought, because even Blondie shut up. I watched, anticipation and fear in my stomach, as Blondie handed Renesmee to her grandmother. I only registered the glare the ice cold Barbie shot at me on the periphery. I was too hyper-focused on the hours-old baby, just as she was focused on me. Our eyes locked across the expanse on of the living room._

 _I watched as one tiny hand raised toward Esme's face._

 _I might be the youngest of the Black family, but I'd grown up on the rez. Friends, neighbors, their families were always expanding and for that reason, babies weren't any real mystery. I'd even minded a few of them now and then. Because of that, I knew the action was deliberate, not some random flail of new limbs. Something she shouldn't be able to do for at least a few months._

 _Esme's gasp pulled me from this train of thought and my eyes flew not to the vampire, but to the infant she held. Nothing appeared wrong, but I was transfixed again. So was she. Our eyes remained locked and it was everything I could do to stay where I was and not move closer._

 _All-consuming as the need to be closer to her was, my self-preservation was just as strong. Blondie was just looking for an excuse to rip parts of my body off. If I got any closer to Renesmee, she would take it._

 _Carlisle arrived then, alerted no doubt, by Esme's sound of alarm. Conversations ensued, from Blondie to Esme to Carlisle, even Emmett and Jasper joined in. Edward, I assumed, listened from upstairs, but we weren't his main focus. He was too busy burning right along with the still, silent, and transforming Bella._

 _I saw Renesmee's hand raise again, towards her grandfather this time, then I saw all six vampires turn to look at me._

 _"What?"_

 _"Have you held a baby before, Jake?" Esme asked in that voice that never failed to make me feel about five years old._

 _"Yeah, lots of times. We're not exactly hatched full grown on the rez, you know."_

 _"Ever think it might help your cause if you lost the sarcasm?" There was a pause while we all stared at the ceiling over our heads where Bella and Edward were. "It's all right, Rose. Carlisle's right about what she's doing. I can see it, too."_

 _I didn't have a clue what the bloodsucker was rambling about, and I didn't care. Esme was a foot away with Renesmee in her arms. And Renesmee was reaching for me, her small, fragile arm extending just as mine did, unconsciously mimicking her action._

 _Then Esme bent low, handed the baby to me._

 _And my world was complete._

 _I never knew how long we sat there, Ness and I, our eyes searching one another's, reinforcing the initial bond I'd felt at first sight – a bond I now knew she shared. I didn't know whether Emily, or Kim, or Claire felt this as well, I'd never thought to ask. Why would I? I'd hated the whole idea of imprinting the second I realized I hadn't imprinted on Bella and therefore never would._

 _I didn't care if they had, though. I was Ness' just as she was mine. That endless night, it was all that mattered._

 _Around dawn, Ness' eyes finally left mine and went to the ceiling. Her small hand pressed once again to my cheek and I flinched at what she showed me. I saw the disturbing image of Bella just after Ness' birth, saw Edward covered in Bella's blood, his eyes crazed with grief._

 _I knew what she needed._

 _Blondie hissed when I stood from the sofa, but I merely shot her a glare. "I'm taking her to her parents."_

 _I climbed the stairs towards the office where Bella was changing, unnaturally still save the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Thankfully, someone had cleaned the room and dressed Bella. Based on the outfit, it could only have been Shortie. I grinned when I saw the shoes. Bella was going to flip._

 _Edward hadn't had any smiles for me, but that didn't surprise me. I knew he wouldn't crack the mask on his face until he had undeniable proof that Bella would live...would survive...well, would exist beyond what she was going through now. Whatever you wanted to call it. Swear to God the man thrived on angst. Carlisle had changed how many vamps now? If he wasn't worried, I didn't see any reason to be._

 _I will never forget is the look on his face when he looked up and saw me holding Ness._

 _"I can't, Jacob," he said as he started to turn back towards Bella's still body._

 _Ness' hand had raised to my cheek again. I saw Edward's face, flashing in front of my eyes like an old movie stuck in the projector._ Daddy! Daddy!

 _She hadn't spoken, of course, but Edward saw the pictures just as surely as I had._

 _"She needs you, Edward. She needs to be here."_

 _It took a full minute, an eternity as far as vampire decisions went, but Edward's arms finally raised. He took his daughter into his embrace. We both watched, transfixed as her smile bloomed across her perfect features._

 _Edward pressed her hand against his cheek when it had raised again. Then they'd both turned towards Bella. "I don't know, baby girl. Your mommy's got to recover, then she'll wake up." He had paused, obviously another picture. "No, it hasn't been easy on her. But she never stopped believing in you, my precious girl. She'll fight her way back for you, too."_

As I'd left the room, I'd heard Edward humming an unfamiliar song to Ness.

 _Hey, Jake._

I yelped when the voice broke through my woolgathering. Yelped and turned, teeth bared in a growl. It wasn't until I recognized the wolf behind me that my higher brain functions kicked in and overrode the instincts.

 _Christ, Seth. Warn me, next time, all right? I nearly took your head off._

Seth barked out his rough laugh. _I've been trying that for the last ten minutes, man. You were a little caught up._

I shook my head and stamped my big paws on the ground. I was continuing to suck as the pack's Alpha – spending so much time in m own twisted, fucked up world—

 _We understand, Jake. We've all been there._

 _Yeah, when you first imprinted. This isn't exactly new for me, you know._

 _This part of it is._

I looked at Seth, my head cocked to the side. _What d'you mean, this part of it is?_

Seth laughed again. _The fun part._

I growled at him. _Seth, stop talking in riddles, will you? I've had about enough of that shit for one day._ Unbidden, my thoughts went back to my garage, and Bella and Edward's visit.

 _Huh. What d'you know. I didn't think they'd be trying to help. Well, Bella, yeah. But never thought Edward would step in like that. Pretty funny the way he was all writhing on the floor though, huh? He's a riot._

 _Oh yeah. I never stop laughing when he's around._ I butted Seth in the shoulder with my head. _Now get on with it._

 _I'm kinda surprised I have to at all. You really don't know?_

 _Know. What?_ My teeth were bared again.

 _Don't you remember Embry and Maia? She hated him on first sight, right?_

I did remember. We all did. It wasn't the best time to be a phased member of the LaPush pack, especially when Embry was running patrols.

 _Exactly. So, then what happened?_

What had happened? Embry had kept his distance, forced to because it was what she needed, but at the same time been unable to leave her alone, unprotected. The only bright spot in the whole mess was that Maia knew Kim, Jared's wife. It'd taken all of us to convince Embry to let Kim talk to Maia, to tell her what was going on before she called the cops on him. And so it went until one day, Maia came to LaPush to find Embry.

The rest was imprint history. Bada bing, bada boom. True love.

 _Damn, Jake, are you always this slow or do you just really hate seeing what's right in front of you and pissing and moaning about shit?_

 _Don't sugar coat it, Seth, tell me how you really feel._

Seth gave me a push, reminding me of the one time the three of us were on patrol and Embry caught Maia's scent near the trail before Maia's feelings had changed.

 _Yeah_ , I thought at Seth, _so he felt the same pull we all do._

 _The same pull you've felt towards Ness since the second you saw her, but don't anymore. The same pull Quil feels towards Claire. Protective, brotherly._

I stopped walking. I faced Seth. My heart was hammering in my chest as I fought against what he was trying to tell me.

 _It's true, Jake. Embry never had a sex thought about Maia until she wanted him that way. Protective, yes. Love, yes. Desire, no. Not until she felt it too. And Quil's never felt it. Hell, the poor guy doesn't even beat off because his mind doesn't—_

I howled. _Fuck. Too much information, Seth. Move on._

Seth just shot his lolling-tongue dog grin at me, not in the least abashed. _You getting the point at least? Edward and Bella are right. Ness doesn't need you the way she always has. She needs you in a whole different way. If she didn't, you'd still be kissing her forehead and beating off—_

 _Enough!_ It wasn't an Alpha command, but it did the job. Either that or Seth's howling laughter was so all-consuming he couldn't continue.

 _So?_ Seth managed when he got himself under control.

 _So what?_

 _So I've just told you that your imprint needs you, Jake. What the fuck are you doing still standing here?_

I was gone a second later.


	8. Chapter 8

NPOV

Come in, Ness," Aunt Alice called, a second before my knuckles rapped against the wood of her closed door. I pushed it open to find her on her bed, a dozen sketches spread out in front of her and a charcoal pencil in her hand.

I raised my eyebrow when our eyes met, shutting the door behind me with a soft click. Aunt Alice, as a rule, wasn't able to see me in her visions.

"I saw my evening wipe completely away about an hour ago," she explained. "I was pretty sure it was you, not one of the wolves," she added with a wink.

"Nope, just me," I said and shifted a few piles of sketches off her bed to sit on the edge of it.

Aunt Alice was having none of that and pulled me closer to her.

"I remember that look on your mother's face once upon a time," she commented, draping one cool arm around me.

I rested my head on her hard shoulder and blew out a breath. My mouth stayed open as if to answer her, but again, I didn't have the words for it. All I could do was raise my right hand and place it on her cheek. She saw the memories as I did and I was so caught up I forgot to lift my hand before I got to the scene in the forest last night.

All she saw was me kissing him, but that was enough. I blushed and placed both hands in my lap, my eyes fixed on my fingers.

"Interesting," she said, a lilt to her voice I only heard when she was teasing Mom or Aunt Rose. "I'll bet the wolf enjoyed that last bit," she chuckled.

My jaw fell open in shock and my head whipped to the side to stare at her. "No, he didn't. He pushed me away."

"Really?" She mused, "I didn't think he'd be able to do that." Her lips pressed together and her eyes widened. Then she resumed, her voice quick and choppy...like she was overcompensating. "I mean, what man could resist being so thoroughly kissed by a beautiful woman?"

I sighed. "I'm guessing not many of them. I know Trey probably would have been thrilled. But he hasn't known me since I was a baby and doesn't look at me like I'm some little girl in pigtails who needs protecting."

Alice bit her lip and looked at me sideways. "True. Trey looks at you like you're something to own from what Bella told me."

"More like I'm the shiny new toy everyone else wanted for Christmas and he was lucky enough to find under the tree. I'm not anticipating popping that balloon, but I'm certain he'll recover and find someone else to decorate his arm."

"And Jacob," Alice pressed, "you said he looks at you like you're still a little girl?"

"Always has, always will," I sighed again. I was trying to not let the sadness overtake me again, but it was too close, too real. We'd always been together, I thought we always would be.

For the first time in my life I was starting to doubt that.

Alice was silent for a long time, something I wasn't used to at all. I looked up at her, confused. "Aunt Alice?"

Her eyes closed and she smiled. Her expression was almost…relief? "Your mother's home, Ness. I think this might be one she's better able to help you with than me. If there's one person that understands Jacob, it's her. Maybe Leah, but I somehow doubt she'd be a help in this situation."

I snorted. "No, Leah'd be more likely to tell me to go to hell."

I didn't move to go find my mother, though, because something was terribly off with my aunt. She was the most vociferous of us all, by a very wide margin. Not to mention that she rarely held back what she was thinking. After all, what was the point with Dad around to spill it out to everyone anyway?

"You're keeping something from me," I accused, my eyes narrowing.

"Actually, I have Rosalie threatening to rip my head off if I don't come up with a design for her Homecoming dress soon..."

"I said I was _thinking_ about ripping it off," Rosalie countered from downstairs. Another reason there was no point in trying to keep secrets in a house full of the sensory gifted. Super hearing left little room for subterfuge even if Dad _wasn't_ around to simply mine our minds.

"Go to Bella, Ness. She's in their room, trying to decide whether or not to come find you," Aunt Alice paused and cocked her head to the side, "and Edward's going to be playing his piano in a few minutes, so you'll have some measure of privacy while you talk." She crooked a resigned look at me. "I think."

Much as I just wanted to close myself in my room and wallow alone, the lure of trying to figure out just what the hell was going on, and why Aunt Alice was keeping things from me, was too great.

I kissed my aunt on the top of her spiky head and eased off her bed. "Might as well let you get back to it. I've not yet had to see you guys rip off pieces and then reassemble yourselves and I'd rather not start now."

There were muted chuckles from all over the house at my comment. It filled the silence while I padded softly to my parent's room. I didn't knock, knowing she could hear my footfalls clearly enough, and my heartbeat even clearer. I pushed the door open and peeked around it.

"Mom? Do you have a few minutes?"

Her eyes were soft and sympathetic, the warm butterscotch comforting me. Her arms opened wide and I moved into them without pause.

"Jake's an idiot," I said without preamble.

"Yes, he is," she agreed readily and I could hear the laughter in her voice. "But he has his good moments, too."

Her arms tightened around me, not enough to hurt, but enough for me to really feel it. I knew what she was remembering - what Jake had done to save both of our lives - and I slumped a little, feeling very petty for my actions lately.

"I know, I know," I said softly. "He has a lot of them, but..."

"There's always a 'but' where Jacob's involved, Ness."

I heard the falter in my mother's voice, heard my father's fingers pause just briefly on the keyboard of his piano, and I turned in her arms to face her.

"What happened, Mom? Between the two of you," I paused to correct myself, "between the three of you?"

"Ness," Mom sighed, stretching my name out over three syllables. "It's complicated."

"Oddly enough, I figured that part out myself. Though being given the same response every time I've asked about it over the last six years helped, of course." I searched her golden eyes, knowing she was seeing her own brown eyes when she looked back at me. "I need to know, Mom."

We held each other's gaze for a long time. I didn't move and neither did she, but as I was partially human, only Mom was able to keep utterly motionless. It was eerie sometimes, the way they went stone still like that.

"Yes, I suppose you do." Mom took a deep breath in and pulled me in close. "It's hard for me, you know that, because the memories, they're human ones. I haven't worked as hard to keep those memories. Some of it," her face twisted, "wasn't pleasant and I wasn't sad to see them go, either. Your dad could give you a better idea, but it's not a walk through the garden for him to remember it, either. "

"Why? What went so wrong?" I was still so confused about the time leading up to my birth, about the bits and pieces I'd strung together from things I'd overheard – about why, if it was so horrible, why the three of them were still friends at all.

Neither of us missed that the music hadn't started up again downstairs.

"In a word? Everything. We were supposed to be what we are now, I remember that much. Best friends, closer almost than siblings. But when your father left…." Again, she paused and I turned to see her face twisted up again, like she was trying to see through a dense fog.

Only I jerked in shock when my father spoke.

"I left you bleeding, Bella. And Jacob healed you, held you together when there was nothing left for you to hold on to."

"Edward," Mom started and I could see by her face that she would have tears on her cheeks if that were still possible. "You don't have to be here for…."

"Yes, I do. It's my story, too, or parts of it." Dad crossed into the room and took the other side of their bed, with me now sandwiched between them. We hadn't cuddled like this for a long time, since my body had reached it's early teens. I realized now just how much I missed it.

"So what happened, after you left, Dad? Mom was in bad shape, I know that much. And I know that you and Jake got closer, Mom," I swallowed. I'd kept this from them, that I knew this much. "I know he fell in love with you, and you with him."

I was surrounded by statues again. Neither moved, neither breathed, their eyes locked on one another's. I knew they were trying to figure out _how_ I knew, seeing how careful they'd been.

No need to tell them that Seth, and Quil, were more sympathetic with my need to know than anyone else and had filled in more than a few gaps.

"Maybe you should be telling the story, Ness, since you already know it all," Mom said finally.

"I don't, though, I don't know it all. I don't know the most important things."

"Like what?" Dad asked, his eyes now on me.

"Like how he stopped!" I nearly shouted it, turning on the bed to face both of them. "He went to the Forks house, bound and determined to kill you, Dad. Because of what he thought you'd done to Mom, turned her or killed her or whatever. Then he found out Mom was pregnant and split from Sam to come protect us. Became the alpha he didn't want to ever be," I shifted my eyes to my mother's, "because he loved you. That seems a pretty heavy level of devotion to me. Not something that would just…" I snapped my fingers, "go poof, you know?"

I took a deep breath when neither of them interrupted me. "But it did. Because even my hazy memories from the first few months? They don't gibe with that. At all. And…."

I stopped when my father held up his hand. "Before you say anything else, Ness. Answer me one question?"

I frowned but nodded. "All right."

He seemed wholly uneasy with what he was about to ask, so much so Mom reached over to squeeze his shoulder in support. Then Dad winced, Mom smiled, and I was completely lost.

"What would you say your greatest need is right now?" I could have sworn I heard his teeth grinding.

"Jake," I answered, without even pausing to consider it. Because there was nothing _to_ consider. Jake was…he just was. Mine. Always.

Always?

For the first time in my life, I was starting to doubt that.

"Of course," Mom said, but she was staring at Dad, "best friends are always important."

It hit me from nowhere, the memory of Jake's lips on mine. Just a flash, one I managed to bury under thoughts of shoe shopping with Aunt Alice. At least, I thought I'd been quick enough.

I jumped a near foot off the bed when Dad growled and brought up both hands to rub his temples. Mom hadn't reacted at all, she merely nodded as if Dad's growl answered everything…

Because it probably did.

"Dad, that really is rude, you know," I sniffed.

"But vital sometimes. Especially when your daughter starts keeping things from you, things you need to know in order to help."

Now my anger was starting to bubble to the surface. "Well, excuse me for not reciprocating the full disclosure _I've_ been given all my life. Some things are private, Dad, and my feelings for Jake are most definitely among the private ones."

"Please, Renesmee, take it down an octave," Mom interrupted me, using the full name to get my complete attention. "Those private feelings are the ones we've been waiting for since you were six months old. Or, at least, Jake has."

That stunned me stupid. " _Jake_ has? What are you talking about?"

Mom sighed again. "Jake's feelings for me didn't just go away, Ness. He…when your father and I came home from Esme's island, yes, Jake came to the house intent on calling your father out. On killing him. But then he saw me, saw us," Mom paused and took my hand, squeezing it lightly; her other hand dropped to her stomach, and the bulge I know she still missed. "When he saw us, the love he felt for me intensified like he'd been shot full of adrenaline. As you grew, as you got stronger, so did his feelings for me, or so we thought. It was very painful for all of us—"

"What do you mean, or 'or so you thought'?"

"I was getting to that." Mom reached out and took Dad's hand again, as she did every time my birth was mentioned. They never mentioned the actual birth, but I remembered enough of it to know that I didn't need the specifics.

"After you were born, Jake was positive I'd died. That's what he told me; he knew I was dead because the feelings were gone. That impossible, painful love he'd felt had vanished, so he left me with your dad and decided to leave. That's when…when he saw you."

She paused and looked at me meaningfully. I could only look back, confused. "And…?"

"And everything changed," Mom said simply, still staring at me. In fact, both of them were. As if I was having an especially dim-witted moment and missing something obvious…

That's when the pieces started falling, like dominos, one leading to another, creating a picture I'd never even imagined.

My mind moved backwards and I wondered, in a small part of my brain, if this is what the pictures I showed others looked like to them. I wasn't a full vampire, but I had their recall. The photographic memory. And as my eyes closed, it served me well.

Aunt Alice, Mom, Dad, furtive looks from all of my family, hiding things from me.

A friendship that should have ended with the crisis that caused it, my impending birth and mom's change from human to vampire, yet still thrived.

An entire treaty rewritten.

A half-vampire allowed free run of land that had been off limits for nearly a century.

And then came the hazier images of my very first days, blurred around the edges, but still clear enough.

Mom attacking Jake, Seth standing in the way.

Meeting Tanya and Kate, Carmen and Eleazar from the security of Mom's arms with Jake right behind us. Wolf people like...like my Jacob. Was he? As far back as that?

Yes, he was.

But the memories weren't finished. They seemed determined to have their say.

The muffled sounds of Mom's rough voice, Dad's lyrical one, and another deep rumble I didn't know well, but waited to hear, thrilled whenever I did.

Jake taking me to Dad while Mom lay still in front of him, the haunted look that only slightly eased when I settled into his strong, cool arms.

Watching Mom run off with Dad, laughing in her new body, from Jake's arms at the back window, asking why she hadn't come to see me first.

Then, as if holding it until last, I saw Aunt Rosalie's deep golden hair, felt the warmth of my first meal, and sensed movement just beyond us.

I had looked up.

Our eyes had locked.

My Jacob.

"Oh my God," I whispered. "You didn't. He did, didn't he? He imprinted. On me," my voice rose again and I leapt from the bed. I looked from Mom to Dad, their faces showing the truth like blinding neon signs. "He did, and you didn't tell me. You kept it from me."

"Yes, we did," Dad answered, speaking finally. "We wanted you to have as normal a life as you could, Ness. We didn't want you pressured by a direction you _thought_ your life was supposed to follow. If it was to be, we wanted it to be your choice, not your obligation."

I glared at him, at her. "And he agreed to this?"

"Yes, he did. He wanted it too, Ness. He's always wanted what was best for you, what you needed. Until recently, you both had what you needed so there was no problem. I don't think Jacob realizes that your needs have changed, though. Even with the," Dad waved a hand as if unable to say it, "what happened earlier."

I couldn't help it; I blushed. He knew…of course he knew. There were precious few secrets in this house. And what he knew, Mom knew. One image came to the forefront of my mind, more a sense than a memory: the feel of Jake's body against mine. Then I heard the hiss and closed my mind off, backing towards their bedroom door.

"Ness?" Mom called, worry in her voice.

"I need to be alone, Mom. I've got to process all of this and I can't," I shot a look at my father who was trying desperately not to wince, "I can't do that here."

Mom merely nodded. I didn't stop to look at Dad. I barely registered the too-quiet house. I just turned and left their room, not stopping until I was deep in the wooded area behind our estate as dawn started to lighten the sky around me.

I intended to stay out there until it made sense to me.

I stayed out there for a very long time.

"Hello? Ness? You in there?"

I blinked when I realized someone was waving a hand in front of my face. As unobtrusively as possible, I gave my head a quick shake, trying to recall myself to the present and not the chaos my life had become.

I didn't remember deciding to come to school, I only knew that having my full mind doing nothing but churning over the present and the past was getting me nowhere. Maybe if I added American History and math into the mix, I'd be able to focus. To figure out what to do.

My parents hadn't come up to me when I'd turned up in the hallway at home that morning; they didn't need to. I saw what I needed to see on their faces – the remorse, the worry, and, as ever, the overwhelming love. For me. The miracle they never expected.

It was the one thing I'd been able to settle on, to believe to the depths of my soul. What they did, they did out of love for me. Just as they had from the beginning.

Had Jake?

That was the kicker. And the irony.

As ever-present as he'd been in my life, the one time I desperately needed him, he was no where to be found. Not his house, not the garage. I hadn't been able to find any of the other wolves either.

"Ness?"

"Sorry, Kat, I've just got a lot on my mind," I answered, knowing how feeble the excuse was.

"I'd say," she grinned, "like what you're going to wear to prom?"

"Prom?" I blinked again, utterly lost. What did some dance have to do with...anything?

"Yeah, Ness. Prom. Big dance, formal dresses? Boys in tuxedos? Any of this ringing a bell?"

"Right, yeah, prom. I'm not going."

Kat looked shocked. "You're...but I heard Trey saying you were going together. In fact, I think we're all going together in the same limo..."

I barely heard Kat. At the mention of Trey's name, a shiver of guilt had caught a toe-hold in the chaos of my mind. I hadn't given my cell phone a thought in the events of the weekend and when I'd pulled it from my bag on the way into school I'd seen five missed calls from him.

"Ness? Did you hear me?"

I sighed and looked sheepish. I really did like Kat, she was a good friend. It wasn't her fault my mind was scattered in so many directions I couldn't follow a simple conversation. What had she said? Something about Trey, prom. Right. That's probably why he'd called.

"I had a little phone trouble last night," I explained, but that didn't appease her. Or that hadn't been what she asked.

"You're doing it again," Kat said, placing a hand on my arm, "what's going on, Ness? I'll help if I can, you know."

I turned to look at her and sighed. For a moment, I wished I could tell her. I wished for a girlfriend, someone I could tell everything to and get advice. Then I imagined her reaction if I told her the truth.

 _Oh, you know Kat. The usual. Turns out my best friend, who's a shape-shifting wolf by the way, imprinted on me almost seconds after I was born – maybe even before that. Like when Mom was still pregnant. That would be my mom, Bella, of course, who you think is my brother's girlfriend. Not that he's my brother, of course, he's really my father. The man you think is my father is really my grandfather – and he's a great resource for European history, because he lived through most of it. He's nearly four hundred years old. Saves on trips to the library, so that's pretty convenient. If you need help on the Civil War while we're on the subject of tutors, my Uncle Jasper could help with that seeing as he was a Major in the Confederate army._

 _But back to the problem at hand. Remember that guy? The one on the motorcycle? He's the one who imprinted on me – it's a wolf thing…means we're soul mates, I'm his other half. He's mine. No one thought I needed to know this, of course. And given that he was once in love with my mother, it's pretty dicey anyway. So here I've been, going crazy thinking that Jake could never see me as anything but the little girl he's protected since she was a baby when really, he's just been waiting for me to need him that way. Which I do, but I don't know how to tell him that any clearer than I did last night when I just about threw myself at him…and he pushed me away. Any ideas there?_

 _Oh yeah, did I mention I'm really six years old? I'll be seven in September, though, so it's okay._

I couldn't help it. I burst into laughter, a scary, almost hysterical laughter, as I pictured her reaction. Then, across the cafeteria, I heard my name. It was probably the only thing that could freeze the laughter from my face.

Great. It was Trey, full of fake smiles and swagger. This was precisely the last thing I needed.

"Hello, beautiful," he grinned, leaning down to kiss my cheek, "just the girl I was looking for."

"I really doubt that," I muttered. I was too punchy for tact.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on the point of view, he missed the sarcasm.

"Course you are," he chuckled, "how else am I going to make sure I've got the best looking date at prom?"

I shook my head and stood up; my mood did not lend itself to tolerating this any longer.

"Did you ever think that you might want to wait to ask me, though, before you started announcing to the world that we were going? We've been out together once, Trey. Once."

"Yes, but...," he started to say, but I shut him down with a look.

I wish I could have seen whatever expression I wore, because he looked a little scared.

"If you're after looks, cut your date out of a magazine. I'm not for you, Trey because I, unfortunately, come with a brain. And it's too far advanced to pretend that I swallow your shallow crap anymore. So why don't you toddle along and find a Barbie doll to dangle on your arm and leave the rest of us alone?"

Trey's face had grown redder the longer I spoke, whether from embarrassment or anger, I couldn't tell. But based on the snickers around us, I was pretty sure the former was winning out.

"I thought you were different, but you're as much a freak as your brother."

My eyes narrowed and my mouth opened to answer, my hand raised to touch him. He thought I was a freak? I'd give him a freak...

That's when I heard it.

So did everyone else.

A lone wolf's howl, much closer than it should be to a suburban high school.

Jake.

My Jacob.

I felt a smile blossom across my face, a wide, true smile the likes of which I hadn't felt in ages.

"I'm coming," I said in my normal voice. He would hear me.

But before I could leave to join him, there was just one thing I needed to do. I moved closer to him, lowering my voice until it was just a whisper. "I've got news for you, Trey. I'm worse."

A pair of soft growls across the room stopped me from pressing my hand to his cheek to show him a few things guaranteed to keep him from restful sleep for the next few years. But then he stepped away from me and the last fetter I had tying me to the spot dropped. I took one step away, then another. My parents remained quiet.

I looked across the cafeteria at them. I whispered "I love you" trusting them to hear it before I turned and left the cafeteria, and then the school, behind me.

I was running before my feet hit the asphalt parking lot. Running in the direction of his howl. "I'm coming, Jake."

I found him in the small copse of wood that bordered between our school and the neighborhood it served.

I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't for Jake to be in his wolf form when I found him, staring out through the trees at the school I'd just left behind.

"Jake."

He didn't turn.

I took a step forward.

"You never told me."

His big head shook side to side then turned to look at me. I was amazed, as ever, to see such human eyes looking back at me through the animal's face. With my eyes locked to his, I closed the distance between us.

Jake didn't move. Neither of us breathed as I raised my hands and placed them on either side of his huge head.

"I remember you," I said. It was the first thing Mom had said directly to me after she'd awakened a vampire. As I had just awakened from my own ignorance, it seemed fitting.

My eyes closed as I sent him my thought pictures – my search for him in the pre-dawn hours, sitting with Mom and Dad on my bed, a host of memories from our shared past in quick flickering moments. Then I slowed them, stopped them, focused on the blurry-edged moment: my eyes raised over Aunt Rosalie's shoulder.

I showed him his face, twisted in rage. Blood covered him, smeared on his face, matted in his hair. Mom's blood. I knew that. I let him see what I'd felt then, complete. Whole. Happy. Right.

Mine.

I showed him his eyes rising to mine. I watched with him as the memory Jake's rage turned to confusion, confusion turned to wonder.

I opened my eyes. I found Jake's eyes on me, realized he'd phased human at some point. The skin beneath my palms was smooth and warm, the hair tickling my fingertips was human, but the eyes were the same.

Familiar. Beloved.

"Don't push me away." My words were no less than a plea.

"I can't. Not anymore. Never again." His voice was a rough growl when he answered back. His eyes, locked on mine, searching them and liking what he saw.

I'd never heard that tone of voice from him before and it did strange things to my spine, and to my stomach. Shivers and flutters that made my breath quicken and my heart stutter. It felt like the first time I'd run, really run, with Mom and Dad.

I felt like I was flying.

Then, just as I'd started to wrap my mind around the new sensations, Jake's arms closed around me, pulled me against his long body, and took my mouth in a long, slow kiss. And a whole host of new feelings flooded me. Always warm, his body now seemed to burn against mine as if it had caught fire. I could feel every inch of his skin that touched mine, searing through my clothes, my skin, burning through to my very core.

Lost in the kiss, my arms raised to wrap around Jake, to pull him closer, to bring the warmth and delicious heat closer. I felt not cotton or denim. I felt hot, soft, bare skin.

Jake had phased human while I showed him my memories. He hadn't left me to phase. I was standing and holding him with nothing between us but the jeans and sweater I'd worn to school that day. Jake was as naked as the day he was born. I felt heat flush my face even as I reminded myself that I'd seen him naked before.

My hand, now on the small of his back, registered those times from our past. He must have seen them as well because he broke through the memories with a quiet little cough.

"Not like," he said softly, a hint of something I couldn't identify in his voice, "not like this."

I reached up to put a hand on his cheek while my other arm kept tight around him. I showed him Alice and Jasper, Em and Rose, my grandparents, my parents, all in various states of embrace. Grinning, I even popped in a picture of Uncle Em's computer when he'd forgotten I was in the room and had drifted onto the porn sites again.

"I'm not a stranger to physical love," I said, smiling into his still closed off face. His breathing was still ragged, though. That put my mind at ease that at the very least, he was still as affected by my proximity as I was by his.

"Maybe not," he said and his voice sounded rougher than sandpaper. "Not in theory anyway. In practice..."

"I'm almost as inexperienced as you are," I finished his sentence for him. Both hands were on his cheeks now. Not showing him any images, just holding him, looking into his eyes. I felt like I was lost in them and wondered if I'd ever find a way out again.

I really hoped not.

The silence stretched between us as we both worked through that statement in our own heads. My own lack of experience, save the sloppy kiss from Trey by the front door, was limited to the man in my arms. Nahuel had been too much a gentleman to even make a pass. In my nearly seven years of life, that was the sum total of my interactions with men not of my own family.

Jake, I knew, hadn't had much more. I'd thought at the time it was because he was too hung up on Mom to even want to date, that had morphed into the belief that he'd imprinted on Mom. But that hadn't happened. He'd gone from crushing on Mom, crushing hard, to imprinting on me, as an infant.

What was it Quil had once told me? He didn't date, even though Claire would surely understand when she got older. He couldn't, because he didn't see girls that way anymore. From the moment of first eye contact, she had become it for him – he would never see another girl as anything but a friend or acquaintance.

So had it been with Jake, so it would always be. He could only see me.

A smile curled my lips. I could live with that.

As my hands were still on Jake, he saw what I did. My mind, so intense, as I worked through everything, that my control over sending thought images was non-existent. It didn't matter. What was mine was his now. Everything. Thoughts, feelings, mind, heart, body and soul. Everything.

"Jake," I said, a little concerned that he'd been so still, so quiet, while my mind sorted through everything.

He didn't answer.

"Jake, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," he said softly. My heart tripped when I saw a smile start to curve the corners of his mouth. "Just lately, this is about the time I wake up."

My smile grew to match his. "So I guess this makes you my boyfriend now," I said, but the words puckered my brow. He was...this was...so much more.

"And that thought makes you frown, why?" Jake pressed, cocking his head to the side.

"It's like calling the Grand Canyon a pothole," I said after a moment's deliberation.

He just laughed. "True. Dropping words like soulmate, imprint, forever into casual conversation just sounds bad."

"Forever?" I knew it was forever, thrilled beyond words that it was forever, but I couldn't resist teasing a bit.

Jake wasn't worried. "Of course. You didn't think this," he paused, reached around and brought my right hand up between us, "was really just a friendship ring, did you?"

I had thought that, and by my expression, Jake must've seen that, because he continued. "I was always positive you'd figure it out that way, because you all wear the same ring."

I looked at it then, the ring that had started as a bracelet wrapped around my small, baby's wrist, but had grown and changed with me through the years. Until my last growth spurt, however, when Jake had given me this one. I stared at it and thought it over, my mind flashing to Maia, to Jade, to Claire, to Emily, Rachel, and Kim. How had I not noticed it before? We all wore the same intricately carved ring, just on different fingers.

Then I got it.

"Right for promised, left for married?" I guessed.

He smiled and nodded.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from his face, the joy that radiated there. I realized it had been long, too long, since I'd seen that much happiness in him. Months at least. And I knew, without asking, that this transition in our relationship had not been easy for him. Had probably been this side of hell.

But as it had been for my parents, surviving hell meant an eternity of heaven on the other side. And I wasn't going to wait another moment to start on that road to heaven.

"Will you do something for me?"

Jake was nodding before I'd finished asking. That would take some getting used to, but that was for later. For now I just had one need.

"Take me home," I said and my voice had, for some reason, dropped an octave. Because I didn't have the words for it, I did what felt most fitting. I raised my hand to his, showed him his bedroom in La Push, then showed us wrapped in each other's arms.

The next thing I knew Jake had taken a few steps away from me and phased. His paws were practically prancing on the forest floor as he waited for me to join him. With a grin and a nod, I started running.

Not for the Seattle house, though. I was heading for Forks.

Alone time was essential and we would have none at the Seattle house. At least on the reservation we'd have some semblance of it.

I'd spent my whole life observed by my family in one way or another. We'd spent our entire relationship watched over, our actions dissected. For this one moment, I wanted it to be just us.

I knew logically that the run took hours since I wasn't as fast as the rest of my family; the time flew nearly as fast as we did. But this wasn't a normal run. This wasn't a hunt for food, or a family trip. I was running towards my future, and for the first time it didn't look like the lone, bleak existence I'd always feared.

I stopped when I reached the front steps of the little house Jake had shared with Billy until his father had left the small house to his son when he'd moved in with a companion, Judith Call. For some reason, that had set the pack's collective tongues wagging, but I'd never asked why.

And right now, Billy's living arrangements were far from important.

What was important was this little house, the little bed, and the wolf phasing to man before my eyes. I walked one step backward for every step forward he took, our eyes fused, and led us to the master bedroom.

I stopped just on the threshold of the room. I didn't know what to say, didn't know if I had words enough to say it even if I could find my voice. Out of habit, I touched his cheek when he finally stopped in front of him, but even that failed me.

I didn't have any pictures for this.

But Jake, a smiling, happy Jake the likes of which I haven't seen since the Volturi walked off after deciding to leave us and the wolves alone.

"Do you know how to do this?" I asked, my voice a quiver.

He grinned again, dipped low to scoop me off my feet, and leaned down to kiss me as we lowered to the bed. "In theory," he said again. "But given the nature of a healthy, growing boy's thoughts, I've more than a general idea of the basics."

My nose wrinkled. "Does that mean the pack's going to know exactly what we're doing now?"

"I have a feeling they'd know that even without the benefit of a pack mind," he said on a soft chuckle, just before his lips took mine in a soft kiss.

"Oh? Why's that?" When I answered, my voice came out breathless. Jake's kisses were wreaking havoc on my lungs.

"Because I doubt I'm going to stop smiling for a good long time, Ness," he answered.

My own smile grew. "I suppose I can't complain, can I? The pack's been steering you right since your first kiss, haven't they?"

Jake's fingers stopped the lazy patterns they were drawing on my collarbone he'd uncovered after unfastening several buttons on my blouse. "What do you mean?"

I giggled. "One of my first bonfire parties. I overheard Embry, Emily and Sam talking about you and your disastrous first kiss. I think I looked about eighteen months old at the time and they tended to lump me in with the other toddlers and talked freely around me back then. Something about Sam seeing your first kiss when you thought about it on patrol, and then yelling at you for twenty minutes about everything you'd done wrong, up to and including not realizing that Mom was NOT reciprocating."

Jake's eyes raised to mine. "How weird is that for you? The first woman I kissed being your mother, I mean."

"A little," I allowed. "But lucky for you I grew up on weird. As long as I'm the last one you'll ever kiss I think I can handle it."

"That, Ness, is a given."

"Then maybe you should be doing more of it," I prompted, raising my head towards his. He met me half way, his hand fisting in my hair and pulling me the last few inches forward.

This kiss wasn't the soft caresses we'd shared since laying down on this bed, wasn't even the emotional embrace of the forest outside school. But neither was it the passionate clinch of our overlook, nor was it the passion I'd witnessed in my family. Jake's hands roamed over me as the kiss stretched on; he touched my cheek, my arms, my sides. Everywhere I wanted him, but not where I needed him.

I took his hand and squeezed it. "I need to get one thing clear, Jake." I stopped, moved my fingers up to encircle his wrist. I didn't let him get a word in during the brief pause. "I'm almost seven years old chronologically. Physically, I'm around eighteen years old. Mentally, I'm around thirty."

"I know, Ness," he began but I cut him off with a look. "But…"

I shook my head. "No buts, Jake." I lifted his wrist, sliding his warm fingers up and over my stomach and along my side. "The only thing that matters right now is you. And me. And us." Slowly, I slid his hand the last few inches until it covered my breast. "I need you, Jake. In every way."

I felt his answering groan through every nerve ending I had, and some I hadn't even been aware of until that moment. His fingers tightened against my breast. I could feel the heat of his skin through my shirt and bra, but it wasn't enough, not by half.

"More, Jake," I managed to say through shaky breaths. I squirmed underneath him trying to get my hands between us, to tug, pull or rip away the barriers between his hands and my bare skin.

"Easy, Ness," Jake chuckled in my ear, his bare hand spanning the flat of my stomach, his skin hot enough to brand me.

I growled. "I don't want easy, I want now."

"You're not going to get your wish this time," he answered softly, "but I think you'll thank me for it later."

I was about to protest, but that second his strong fingers ripped my bra off of my body. In the next second, his large hand covered my breast, palm grazing the sensitive peak that was distended to the point of torture, pushing into his hand as if waiting for his touch.

It warmed me to think it probably was.

"Jake," I sighed, my back arching up, breast seeking more. More of what I wasn't certain, but the delicious waves of pleasure rippling through my body would do for starters. Jake seemed to know it and kept his hands, and very clever fingers, massaging and manipulating my breasts. He paid equal attention to both, his left hand lightly dancing between them.

I didn't realize until I felt his right hand slide up my thigh, and his mouth close over one hard peak just what his other hand had been doing. Somewhere between the rending of my bra and this moment, he had ripped away every stitch I'd been wearing.

I hadn't noticed it happening; I didn't care now that it had. All I knew was that the elusive "more" I'd been seeking was getting closer still.

"So beautiful," Jake said on a moan, coming up for air after laving my right breast to the point of my own near madness.

I wanted to protest, to bring up the inescapable beauty of my mother, my aunts, my grandmother. But then I raised my head and looked deep into his eyes. I saw it then just as I'd seen it years before. And in that look I saw myself reflected back in Jake's eyes. In that moment, I was just as he said – I was beautiful.

My hands had dropped to Jake's slim hips and my fingers dug into his skin, our eyes still locked together. "I want to touch you, too," I said huskily, barely recognizing my own voice. A shiver passed over his body, one I felt at every point our bodies touched. I'd seen him angry, and I'd seen him phase from that anger. But the delicate shiver affecting him now had no source in anger at all. This, like everything else on this magical afternoon, was quite different.

Jake kissed his way up my torso while my small fingers started to explore – his hipbones, the flat of his stomach, the intriguing line of fine hair leading southward. I already knew I'd be examining that more closely in future, but for now I had but one goal in mind, one destination.

My eyes found Jake's again – he had kissed his way back up to my lips – and our eyes remained fixed as my fingers closed around his cock. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't the smooth, hot velvet or the slight pulsing of blood just beneath the surface. It was both alien and familiar, and just a bit scary.

"Will it fit?" I asked, dazed as my fingers continued to explore.

Jake's chuckle was hoarse, strained. "Yeah, it'll fit. But if you don't ease back a bit, I won't last long enough for you to find out."

"Wha- oh!" My cheeks blushed scarlet as I realized my exploration had become stroking. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," he insisted, lowering to kiss my mouth slowly, thoroughly, as his big hand covered my flat stomach, "it's all right." Then his fingers found my curls, slid further down and found my core.

My back came up off the bed, my whole body arching towards him. That more I'd been seeking had to be close now. "OhgodJake!" Even though his fingers were still, just one long finger slipped deep inside my body, I could feel my body start to tremble. My eyes closed under the torment, the physical pleasure was so intense my mind couldn't handle the accompanying sensory overload from my eyes. I need to just feel, to just be, to just...

"Jake. I need...," I mumbled, trying to form words. They came out slurred.

"What, my Ness, what do you need?"

I nearly screamed when his finger started moving.

"I don't know," I answered honestly.

"It's all right, love. I do." Without another word, and further without any more warning than a shift of the mattress, Jake moved to cover my body with his. "You're ready, but this still might hurt."

I knew all about the pain, was expecting it, but when Jake pressed the tip of his cock to my opening, there was no pain. Nor was their any when his cock sank deep inside me. There was just Jake, just me. Just us. Again, our eyes locked. I brought both hands up, cupped his cheeks, and told him what I couldn't find words to express. Love. Life. Complete. Together.

Mine.

"I love you."

We spoke the words together, meshed those words with our thoughts, our hearts and our bodies and for a long, protracted moment, that's all there was, and all there needed to be. Then our bodies took over, their own needs pushing the emotions to the side. I was still looking for my more, my body reaching, straining, searching until Jake lifted and lowered his hips in one fluid movement.

I didn't scream, but the moan of pleasure shook the pictures on the walls. "OhgodJake! Yesssss..." My legs came up to wrap tight around his hips, I didn't want him any further away from me than he had to be. Then Jake increased his pace, driving his cock deeper inside me with every thrust. The bed shook and the headboard rattled against the wall, my legs around him became more of an anchor, keeping me from flying off the face of the earth from the pleasure wracking my body.

"Jake...Jake...Jake...," I panted out his name as the feelings inside me started to shift, to stretch, to burn. Everything in me was reaching for something, something I knew instinctively only Jake could give me. "Please, Jake, please," I gasped against his ear, catching the lobe between my teeth and tugging.

He responded in kind, one arm tightening around me as his other slipped between us to splay against my stomach. I didn't know why until his fingers slipped lower, down between my curls again. When his fingertip found the bundle of nerves where my needs were centered, my body flew to pieces, shuddering and shattering as I screamed his name loud enough to shake the house down to its foundation.

I managed to drag my eyes open. I found his face seconds before his body released and he followed me into bliss. Our eyes met, I saw and felt his love, gave my own back, and felt him go rigid above me as his orgasm ripped through him.

It was a long while before either of us moved, a bit longer before we were able to speak more than grunts. Jake was sprawled above me and on top of me, but my hybrid's body easily bore the weight. He had tried to move at first, but I'd threatened to rip off his arms if he tried it.

I can still feel the rumble of that deep laugh reverberate down my torso and legs.

Eventually, he propped up on his elbow, brushed the damp hair from my forehead and our eyes met.

There was no shame, no uneasiness in either of our faces. Just wonder, love, and the same sense of rightness. This is how we were meant to be, ever and after. Just as it was with the rest of my family.

I laughed softly.

"What's the joke?"

"Nothing. I finally understand why my family tends to disappear for hours at a time sometimes. Mostly, though, I finally understand what all the shouting's about." I drew my bare foot along his calf. "I don't know about you, but I don't plan on leaving this bed for quite some time."

"Is that so?"

My fingers tangled in his long hair, pulling his head back down to mine. "That's very, very so. Is that a problem?"

"Depends. What d'you plan on doing while you're taking up precious space in my too-small bed?"

"Oh, I dunno," I said, using my most blasé tone. "Crosswords, maybe give myself a manicu—" I couldn't finish the word because Jake's lips were in the way. I grinned up at him when the kiss broke. "Or we could do more of that, I suppose."

"I like your thinking," he grinned, locking his arms around me and rolling us until I was the one splayed across his body.

I sat up, utterly forgetting my state of undress, and traced my fingers over the muscles, peaks and valleys of Jake's chest – something I'd always dreamed of, but never been able to do. Now, I took my time, savoring every touch like we didn't have an eternity together.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Forever," I answered simply.

Jake smiled, his fingers drawing lazy patterns on my hips. "What about it?"

"Something I remember Mom saying. About forever sometimes feeling like it's not long enough. I don't think I understood what she meant until right now." My grin widened, drowning in the love I saw in his eyes.

His hand skimmed up my side, brushed the side of my breast and fisted in my hair. He was just pulling me down for another kiss when a tell-tale buzzing interrupted from the floor.

"Dad," I said.

"Still with the goddamned timing," Jake groused, but there was a smile twisting the corners of his mouth. "Go ahead. You won't rest until you've spoken to them."

Because he was right, and we both knew it, I scrambled off his body just long enough to unearth my phone. Once I had, it, I climbed back on and reclaimed my spot. I grinned wider when both of Jake's eyebrows raised. "Don't worry, he's too far away to hear your thoughts." I traced the lower curve of his pectoral muscle with my fingertip. "Or mine."

Before Jake could answer, I answered the insistent buzzing. "Hi, Dad."

"Renesmee? Just where the hell are you?" It wasn't Dad. Mom's frantic voice carried through the room. "You just ran off into the woods. And you know Alice can't see you, you're too far away for your father to hear. We tried to follow your scent, but by the time we'd gotten up to the hill, we had to wait for school to let out so no one would get more suspicious. Anyway by the time we got up there it'd rained and diluted it and you didn't call and...where are you and why aren't you answering me, young lady?"

I'd tuned her out about five seconds into the rant, my free hand tracing the ridges of muscles on Jake's stomach. Jake poked my side when Mom went silent.

"What? Oh. Sorry, Mom, I should have called. I'm with Jake, down at La Push. We were...talking and I lost track of time."

There was a growl in the background. And I thought I heard Uncle Emmet call out to Uncle Jazz about owing him fifty bucks. They'd bet on this? Of course they had.

"Talking?" Mom asked and I could hear the skepticism.

I laughed a little. "Among other things, yes."

I heard Mom's intake of breath, a sure sign lecture number two was on its way. She surprised me by fitting the whole lecture into two words. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, Mom, really. And tell Dad to stop growling. This was my decision," I paused, then continued, pointedly, "my choice. And before you bring it up, let me answer this part straight out. No, I didn't wait for a wedding because one isn't necessary."

I felt Jake stiffen beneath me, but I just smiled, leaning low to press a kiss just where his heart beat.

"Isn't necessary?"

"No, it isn't." I was answering Mom, but answering the same question in Jake's eyes at the same time. "That's nothing more than paper and words, Mom. I've been Jake's just as he's been mine since the moment our eyes met. You know it, so does Dad, so does everyone else. I was the only one left in the dark on that vital little piece of information." My voice carried no malice, I wasn't angry at being kept ignorant. Because they were all right, the only reason I felt so secure in where I was, in what I was saying, was because I chose to be here. Wanted him before I knew he was already mine. It made a difference.

"I'm certain we'll get around to white dresses and ministers and vows one of these days. Aunt Alice will see to that. But Jake's waited almost seven years for me to make my choice, I didn't see the need to tack a few more months onto that, do you?"

Our fingers had become intertwined as I spoke and Jake was kissing each of my knuckles. I started to lose track of where I was and what was going on again, lost in his eyes, his touch, the beat of his heart, audible to me in the quiet of the room.

On the peripheries of my mind, I heard Mom prattling in my ear, happy for us. I heard Aunt Alice pull the phone from Mom with a threat of "of course you're having a wedding, Ness." I heard Grandma Esme on the phone calling Grandma Sue, already asking about Quileute ceremonies.

Jake's eyes were on mine, a twinkle of laughter in them. "Are you asking me to marry you, then, Miss Cullen?"

I grinned back. "It seems like a good idea. We're both immortal and I didn't have any other plans for my eternity. But if you'd rather just date for the next hundred years first, that's fine too."

Jake laughed and took the phone from my ear. "She'll call you back later, Bells."

Next thing I knew my cell phone was airborne, flying through the open window and halfway to the surrounding trees. "I'll buy you a new one," he said, grinning as he sat up to enfold me in his arms. "I'd like nothing more than to marry you, Ness. I can't imagine anything better than forever with you."

"Neither can I, Jake." My hands raised to cup his face, my thumbs brushing his cheeks. "Neither can I."

~Fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for coming along on my little journey into Ness and Jake's relationship and what I'd like to think happens in the future with them. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it!
> 
> I do have my next story already in production – ExB this time around. Another AU but this one is very, very AU, but I'd like to think it's not OOC. If you're interested in giving it a shot, it'll be posted at first, then at and my writing journal the following day. The story's called Nomad.
> 
> Thanks again for reading along!


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